


Plague

by Spamberguesa



Series: The M Universe [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Because this is me, Gen, Influenza, Let's go with that, and i am an asshole who enjoys torturing my characters, and of course they were not, but at least she's hardly alone, it's not possession but it sure looks like it, lorna hates everything, mick picked a hell of a time for a family reunion, of a sort, of course they thought their troubles were over, so is von rached for that matter, then again he IS a donovan, thorvald is just the gift that keeps on giving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 12:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spamberguesa/pseuds/Spamberguesa
Summary: A mini-sequel toThe World of M.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of _The World of M_ , but I axed it because it felt wrong as part of that story. It's now going to be part of another book of novellas, which is currently in progress.

Mid-September brought heavy autumn rains to the mountain, which filled its clinic with influenza patients — including, unfortunately, Lorna, both twins, and Saoirse. Ratiri spent four uncomfortable nights sleeping on the couch, while the four of them turned the master bedroom into a sickroom — a mini-ward of sneezes and ugly, whooping coughs.

He was taking a break the wild, wet evening of the fifth day, feeling none too good himself, when Sharley found him. She elbowed him in the ribs so hard it made him cough.

“Go home,” she said. “You look like shit and you sound worse. Nothing to do right now that I can’t do in your place.” Which was patent nonsense; she could no more use his abilities than he could use hers.  She didn’t, however, have any need to fear getting sick herself — the dead were rather beyond that possibility.

He debated arguing, but he simply didn’t have the energy. Instead he let her wave him off, signing out and heading off into the deluge. And it _was_ a deluge; if someone had been pouring buckets out of the sky, it couldn’t have been wetter. The river-valleys had to have been a disaster right now.

The water cast haloes around the lights as he headed for the tunnels, and he sneezed, slopping his way along the muddy path. The wind cut through his coat like it was no more than a T-shirt; it only made him shiver and cough even harder. At least the tunnels themselves were marginally warmer, and at this late hour had no other traffic. He could sneeze his way up to his house in peace.

Fortunately, the house was very warm — warm and bright, with all Sharley’s lights aglow in the living-room. Lorna, the saint, had left him some chicken soup and a huge pot of tea.

“Thought you’d need it,” she said, sneezing herself. “You didn’t look too good this morning.” His wife was on the mend by now, though she still sounded terrible. The dry, barking cough had given way to a wet, phlegmy one, and she’d wiped her nose so often it was bright red and raw. “You push yourself too hard, allanah.” She blew her nose, and stuffed her handkerchief back into the pocket of her dressing-gown. It was one of Sharley’s, a bright patchwork thing far too big for her, and her hair hung in a long wet braid down her back — she must be feeling better, if she’d had the energy to take a proper shower.

“I know,” he sighed, but the lights flickered before he said anything more, and Lorna hopped up to get some candles. They’d lost power four times in the last week, which wasn’t that uncommon on the mountain this time of year even before the War. Most of the lines were underground, but storms always did seem to play merry hell with the transformers.

“You’re working yourself to death,” she said when she returned, and there was seriousness beneath her half-joking tone. “You’re worrying me, allanah.”

“Someone has to do it,” but he knew what she meant.  He didn’t _like_ it, but he knew it.

“But it hasn’t got to always be you,” she said gently. “You’re staying home tomorrow, Mister, whether you like it or not. Sharley’ll hold down the fort for you.”

“As my Lady commands,” he said, already knowing he’d feel much worse tomorrow anyway. “Just don’t try to force any of your sister’s tea on me.”

“Be glad you weren’t here the last few days,” she groaned. “Mairead about drove me spare until she got sick herself.” She rested her wrist on his forehead and frowned, unable, anymore, to sense his fever by touch. “Aspirin for you, and then come lay down. I’ve kicked the kids back to their own rooms.”

He finished the last of his soup just in time for the power to go out and stay out. Lorna went to check on the grumbling twins, whose nightlight had gone out, while Ratiri groped his way to their room by candlelight. There was something peculiarly domestic about power cuts — probably because they did happen so very often in the fall. He managed to struggle out of his clothes and into his pajamas without lightning anything on fire, and as if that were some kind of cue, he suddenly felt quite a bit worse. He needed no second urging to go to bed, but he couldn’t sleep right away; he just laid there, feeling sluggish, until Lorna crawled in beside him.

“Do I need to sing you a lullaby?” she asked, only half teasing. “Probably sound like shite right now, but I could try.”

“No,” he said. “Just stay put. I’ll have nightmares of my own, tonight.” He always did, when he was sick — bizarre fever-dreams he remembered with entirely too much clarity.

“You do anyway,” she gently chided him, “but you never tell me.”

“Did Sinsemilla talk to you?” he asked, quite prepared to be very irritated with that damn thing. Sharley’s cadre of voices could be as annoying as they were useful.

Lorna blew out the candles, and laid a hand on his hair. “No,” she said. “She didn’t need to. I know what you’re doing, allanah, because I was doing the same damn thing myself. I put my focus on Sharley so I didn’t have to think about my own crap, and you’re doing the same bloody thing with me.”

He sighed again. “You need it.”

“And you don’t?” she retorted. “Ratiri, just because you weren’t with me doesn’t mean you didn’t go through your own hell. And you’ve not really dealt with that.”

“You’re as bad as Sinsemilla,” he grumbled, but he leaned into her touch. Her hand was still fever-warm.

“No, I think you’ll find I’m much worse,” she said dryly. “I’ve told you my hell, but you’ve never told me what happened to you. Quit being Mister Stoic and bloody _talk_ to me, allanah, or so help me God I’ll pin you down and poke you between the eyes until you go loopy.”

It was a very Lorna kind of threat — ridiculous, but not entirely a joke. He shook his head, smiling against his own will. It was a sad smile, though. “There was so much death,” he said quietly. “So much more than I could fix. For every person I saved there were a hundred I never got to, if not more. L.A. after the first earthquake — it was like the whole city was on fire. Death everywhere, and I was only one person. I always felt like I should have done more, that it shouldn’t have been just me.”

The frustration in his voice was almost a living thing, and Lorna ran light fingers through his hair. “Of course you did,” she said. “That’s part’v who you are.”

“I watched too many good people die,” he went on. “Too many I never got to. Kali should have made an army like me. Then maybe we could have made an actual difference.” He had made a difference, he knew, but it hadn’t been enough — it hadn’t nearly answered the need. Now the mere thought angered him. Why _had_ it only been him? The goddess of his mother’s homeland had granted him, for a time, the ability to raise the dead, by why only him? So many had been lost, and how many didn't need to be?

“Sure you couldn’t save everyone,” Lorna said, still stroking his hair. “But how many people are alive now, because’v you? How many people are wandering around the world now, because you were there?”

“Hundreds,” he conceded. “Maybe thousands. You lose track, after a while, in all that chaos. It’s just…it was all over the bloody world. Sharley took me where the need was greatest, and it was always the same wherever I went. Everywhere, it was nothing but death and destruction.”

She said nothing to that. There was nothing she could say; she could no more properly understand that than he could her trip through the darkness of the Northern Hemisphere. Instead she just stroked his hot forehead, listening, letting him pour it out.

“The children — the children were the worst. I kept picturing the twins there, even though I knew they were safe. Sharley had them almost every moment she wasn’t with me, so I knew nothing was going to happen to them, but I couldn’t help it. Children crushed and mutilated, half-burned or dead of smoke inhalation, and there were so many I couldn’t save. So many parents who weren’t as lucky as we were.”

Maybe it was his fever that was making him babble so. He didn’t know, but babbling was more cathartic than he would have thought possible. “And I was always so worried about you. I was sure Von Rached wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t snap and kill him. And I was wrong, wasn’t I? He did let something happen to you. He almost got you killed, for Christ’s sake.”

“ _Almost_ ,” she stressed gently. “I’m still here. Bit like a cockroach, me.”

“And you didn’t tell me.” Part of him really was angry about that, though he understood full well why she hadn’t. He really would have gone crazy with worry, and been near useless.

“I knew you’d be right pissed about it later,” she said. “But it was the lesser’v two evils.”

“I know,” he said. “But still. I could have torn Von Rached apart when I first saw you on Jary’s ship.”

“I almost did,” she admitted. “I mean, really almost. And I think he would’ve let me. Only reason I stopped was because I knew he wanted me to kill him.”

“That’s my most common nightmare,” he said quietly. “That we never found you — you never came home. You always turn up on the doorstep, dead like Aelis with your eyes missing….”

She sat up to look at him, her good eye bright in the dark. “Christ in a bucket, how long’v you been having that one?”

“Since we got home.”

“Since—” She snorted. “Ratiri, allanah, I love you dearly, but you can be a right idiot. You’ve been having that for seven months and you’ve never bloody said anything?”

“You never tell me half of yours,” he pointed out.

“That’s the most childish argument I’ve ever heard from you. Show me,” she ordered.

He blanched. “No,” he said at once.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she said, and somehow made it sound utterly filthy in spite of everything. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“How could you help with this?” he asked, a little bitter.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m a telepath, you eejit. If you show me, I can change it. And don’t you dare tell me I can’t handle it,” she added, a somewhat ominous edge to her voice. “I’m sick to death’v hearing that.”

She’d give him no peace until he did, and he knew it. He grimaced, knowing this was a terrible idea, but there was no stopping her when she was this set on something.

It wasn’t hard to conjure up the horror of those dreams. He’d had them so often they practically ran in grooves in his mind, each one exactly the same.

_He was always on the sofa in the sitting-room, near paralyzed by grief. The house was a disaster — in the dream-world, no Sharley had come to fix it up, and it smelled of mildew and neglect, cold and damp and cheerless. Silent, too, much too silent, a funereal quiet he feared to break._

_And then came the scratching at the sliding-glass door, nails scraping lines through the grime. He always rose, knowing what he would find, dreading it, but never able to stop himself. The door squealed in its track as he opened it, harsh and rusty, and there she was._

_There she always was._

_She wore one of her old Judas Priest T-shirts, torn and filthy with dust and dried blood. Fresher blood smeared her arms, her neck, dark and sticky in matted hair filled with dirt and twigs. It coated her bared, broken teeth, but her eyes…her eyes were always the worst, those empty, completely black holes, gaping huge in a face streaked with gore. She wasn’t her, wasn’t_ Lorna _— she was some avenging revenant driven mad by the horror of her own death. Blue-white, bony fingers reached for him in silent accusation—_

_But now there was a warm presence in his mind, warm and soothing, and before his eyes the blood and dirt faded away. Her hair smoothed out — her skin lost its undead pallor — and quite suddenly he was faced with her as she really was. She reached now not in accusation, but in comfort, living hands taking his. There was no more chilly damp; the house behind him was snug as it was in reality, and sunlight replaced the darkness outside._

_“Rest now, allanah,” she said. “Rest, and dream of this.” She touched his face, drawing him down so she could kiss his forehead. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”_

_He had no awareness of slipping into true sleep, but he must have. And all night, when he half-woke, he felt her mind in his, the comforting presence of her thoughts. He wasn’t alone, and she made sure he knew it._

 

~

 

Lorna stayed awake a long while, wishing like hell he’d said something sooner. The thought that he’d dealt with that so long alone…but then, he had a point. God knew she hadn’t told him even close to how many sleepless nights she’d had. They were doing exactly what Jary had told her not to — trying to spare one another. That wasn’t going to end well, if they kept it up.

That nightmare of his…good grief. It was as bad as any of hers ever were, yet she knew how rarely he got up to deal with them. And then he’d go off to work with it haunting him, saying nothing….

It was things like this that made digging through his head far too tempting a prospect. She’d never once violated his privacy like that, and she never would, but it was still tempting. She hadn’t been lying to Gavin when she told him how frighteningly easy a thing it was to do — not doing it was the really hard part. Even now — especially now — the urge could be very hard to resist. She so wanted to go into his mind and reorganize it, take away his worry and pain, but to do it would be nothing short of mental rape.

And it pissed her off. Not that she couldn’t, but that she wanted to so badly, because she knew exactly where that urge came from. That was pure Von Rached, and she resented like hell how difficult it was to overcome it at times. That had been his answer to everything, every problem — just go in and do a little rewiring, by force if necessary. He’d always taken the easy way out, and she couldn’t. She wouldn’t, ever. But she still wanted to.

Would he have got so far in life, if he’d been like her — if he’d worked for things, rather than taking the easy path of telepathy? He’d done so very much mind-thievery in his life, overtaking the will of anyone who got in his way. He’d been unquestionably brilliant, possibly the brightest man on the planet, but so much of what he’d got for himself had been achieved through mental strong-arming. All his facilities, even his asylum by the United States — would he have had them, without the telepathy? Whatever his other talents, he hadn’t been good with people. Too arrogant, too imperious, and though he could be charming enough when he expended the effort, he couldn’t maintain it for long.

God, why was she even thinking this? What did it _matter_ anymore? He was dead now; the entire point was moot. But then, some unknown part of him wasn’t dead — it was alive inside her head, twisting her thoughts at times, scaring even her children. Even yet she wasn’t sure how much of him had come back with her, or how, or why. All she knew was that she didn’t seem to be able to get rid of it, any more than she could get rid of her physical scars.

 _And what happens if I_ can’t _get rid of it?_ Nobody seemed to understand what _it_ even was — if Sharley didn't, nobody on Earth was going to. The unwanted connection between Lorna’s mind and Von Rached’s had severed when he died, but she couldn’t deny that something had remained. No matter how much she wanted to.

She forced the thoughts away before she drifted to sleep herself, Ratiri’s head on her shoulder. Despite all their shit, they were doing fine. It had to be enough.

 

~

 

They had another week of sniffles and sneezes before Mairead the Elder descended on them again. She herself was still congested, but she’d recovered much faster than the rest of them.

Lorna wasn’t precisely grateful for all her sister’s bossing, though she was glad Mairead had brought some books. Real books, interesting ones, rather than the primary-school textbooks Rachel had tried to foist off on them. The twins had read through almost everything in the house while they were sick, and Saoirse was running dangerously low on sketch paper — once they were out of that, Lorna would have been at an utter loss as to how to entertain them. Since they were normally in almost constant motion, they made terrible patients.

The rain had finally broken, though the sky was still leaden with clouds. They cast a depressing grey pall over the dead trees beyond the sliding-glass door, so she focused on her bright, crowded kitchen instead. The twins and Saoirse had all squashed together on top of the fridge, taking in the vast entertainment that was Aunt Mairead on the warpath. Ratiri, wise creature, stayed well out of her way, sitting at the kitchen table with Lorna while her sister moved about like a redheaded whirlwind.

“I realize you’ve been sick, Lorna,” she said, as she attacked the counter with Windex, “but where has Sharley been?”

“In the clinic,” Ratiri sneezed. “She had to take over for me. Mairead, you really shouldn’t be so up and about yourself, yet.” She was still too pale, deep shadows under her eyes, and she looked like she’d lost weight.

“Had to get out’v the DMA,” she said. “Seems like everyone’s down with this shite. They’ve closed the Doors to stop it getting worse.”

Lorna winced, and Ratiri shook his head. “Doesn’t surprise me,” he said, sipping ginger tea. “Too many people were malnourished for too long. Weakens the immune system. We’re such a worldwide crossroads that we usually get an outbreak this time of year, just not on this scale. I don’t even want to think about what it must be like out in the world.”

“I don’t know,” Mairead said, sneezing. “If anyone gets news’v it, it’s not me.”

“Christ, why would you even want any?” Pat had shuffled in, wrapped in a fleece  blanket, with a woolly hat on his head. He was still so sick he only got up for tea and the toilet. Fortunately, the electric kettle meant it didn't take long for him to fix the former.

Lorna didn’t think she wanted to know. She wasn’t a doctor, but she was married to one; she knew how the flu worked. Too many people didn’t take proper influenza seriously, and with such an ongoing dearth of viable medicine, there was almost certainly going to be a huge spike in pneumonia cases. People were going to start dying, if they hadn’t already.

For once, she wished she’d acquired some of Von Rached’s actual memories before he died. He’d studied influenza extensively — hell, he’d lived through the great flu of 1918. He’d probably known more about it than anyone else on the planet, but it was lost now. They didn’t even have his notes to go on. Plenty of people knew what they were doing, but not like he had.

 _“Da, when I get all the way better, can I go to the clinic with you?”_ little Mairead asked.

“And get sick all over again?” her aunt said, before Ratiri could answer.

 _“I wouldn’t,”_ Mairead said seriously. _“Once I’m over the virus, I’ll have an immunity to it.”_

“And how would you know that, young lady?” her aunt demanded.

Mairead fixed her with a Look that was far, far too much like Von Rached even for Lorna’s comfort. When she spoke, even her mental voices sounded like him. _“Because that’s how viruses work,”_ she said. _“It’s the principle behind vaccinations.”_

Mairead the Elder paled, and actually dropped her paper towels. She cast a startled look at Lorna, who winced again.

“Go dig through your books, you lot,” she said. “You’ve been up long enough already. I’ll bring you some cocoa in a bit.”

They went, hopping off the refrigerator one by one, and when they’d gone Lorna shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said to her sister, who’d leaned against the counter for support. “Always a bit’v a shock when she does that, I know.”

“You sound used to it,” Mairead said, almost accusatory, as she made her way to a kitchen chair.

“I am, by now. They spent a lot’v time around him, and sometimes it shows.” She looked at her sister, concerned, and when she went to get Mairead some tea, she added a splash of Jary’s potion.

“That doesn’t…worry you?” Mairead asked, taking the mug with trembling fingers.

“It seems superficial enough,” Ratiri said. “Kids mimic the adults around them. So far as I know, they never saw his bad side.”

“They didn’t,” Lorna affirmed. “Just his curiosity. He actually warned Mairead away from becoming like him.”

Even Ratiri hadn’t known that. “When?” he asked, startled.

“Not long before he died. He’d…changed by then, in some way I can’t define. Enough that he didn’t want them following that particular set of his footsteps.” She looked out the door, unable to meet her sister’s disbelieving eyes. She’d never told Ratiri that because she still didn’t know how to articulate what she’d seen, how Von Rached had been with Mairead when he thought himself unobserved. He might not have come to love the twins — she simply didn’t think he was capable of it — but he’d obviously become…fond of them, in a way. It wasn’t something she liked to think about, so she hadn’t, until now.

“I find that hard to believe,” Pat said, and even Ratiri looked skeptical.

“I wouldn’t have believed it myself, if I hadn’t seen it,” Lorna admitted. “Surprised the hell out’v me.” Though that wasn’t strictly true. She’d observed them before — the only difference was that they wound up knowing she was there. “He went weird, just before he died. I think he realized how badly he’d fucked things up — enough that he didn’t want them ending up like him.”

Pat still looked dubious, but Ratiri didn’t. He hadn’t seen Von Rached as often as Lorna had, but he’d seen enough to know what she was talking about, to an extent.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I don’t think there’s any harm in her studying it. God knows she’s bright enough, and it’ll keep her from getting bored, with the weather too nasty for them to play outside.”

She had a definite point there. Jerry, less scientifically inclined, she could entertain herself, while Mairead was off staining bacteria or whatever. Lorna still didn’t understand how that worked, nor was she particularly curious. That facet of Von Rached had not passed to her.

“I’ll take her with me, then,” Ratiri said, “when I go back. How’s Niamh?”

“She’s been lucky so far,” Mairead said. “Hasn’t come down with it yet, and I’m hoping she won’t. When you’re all better I might send her down here, if that’s all right. She’s dying of boredom in our apartment.”

“We’re all past the contagious stage,” Ratiri said. “Send her down whoever you like. Sharley won’t bring it home with her.”

“I think I will,” Mairead sighed. Lorna could tell she was more worried than she wanted to let on, and wondered how bad it really was in the DMA. She had a feeling she was going to find out, whether she wanted to or not.

 

~

 

Sure enough, when Sharley returned that evening, she was immensely troubled — so much so that Ratiri pulled her aside to question her in her own room.

“It’s bad out there, Ratiri,” she said, lighting her pipe. “Real bad, and it’s gonna get worse. We’re looking at a massive epidemic here.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, hoping she wasn’t. She was rarely ever sure of any future.

She nodded. She’d only lit a few of her lamps, and her pipe glowed in the dimness. “It’s only a question of how much damage it does. The ships can keep it from continent-hopping, but America’s kinda hosed.”

His hands closed into fists before he realized it. It wasn’t fair, not after everything else they’d gone through. Hadn’t enough people died already?

“One thing,” she added, her expression, as ever, unreadable. “When you go back to work, take Mairead, but send Lorna to the DMA labs. She knows more than she thinks she does, and you’ll need it. This isn’t Spanish flu, but it’s damn close, and it’s got the potential to be worse. She’ll understand, whether she wants to or not.”

Ratiri already knew she wouldn’t want to, but she’d do it anyway. It wasn’t like they had much choice. “What’s it like out there?” he asked. “Really?”

“Hospitals are filling up. Not enough even basic supplies to go around.” She shook her head. “They’re swamped now, and it’ll only get worse. You all stay put here.”

None of them had had any plans to leave to begin with. “Is that all you can tell me?”

“It’s all I know, so far. I’ll tell you if anything changes.”

He was too exhausted to question her further. He went and collapsed on his own bed, wondering how the hell he was to tell Lorna she would have to go play Von Rached for a while.

 

~

 

As it turned out, Lorna wasn’t terribly surprised.

“Thought somebody’d come to that conclusion sooner or later,” she said, a little irritably. “Not sure why it’s Sharley who seems so convinced I can actually help, but I’ll have a go at it.”

She and Ratiri were out on the porch, where she, entirely against his orders, was trying to smoke. What she was actually doing was coughing every time she took a drag. The landscape had dried out, but it was cold — it would start freezing at night any day now. It made her scars ache like anything, but if she didn’t get some nicotine in her system, she was going to kill someone. The cloud cover was heavy as ever, but the light was no longer so dismal. All this deadness would be much prettier when it snowed.

“She said you know more than you think,” Ratiri said, watching his wife with vast disapproval. He knew better than to try to stop her smoking, but he could glare like a cross parent.

“That,” she said, hacking, “is damn disturbing.” It wasn’t something she even wanted to think about, but if it would help, she had to. She was definitely regretting her idle wish that something of Von Rached’s memory might have survived.

“If you’ll stop coughing like a TB patient, I can take you up there today.” Sharley hadn’t said just what it was like up there — only that it was bad. Neither Lorna nor Ratiri wanted to ask just what that meant.

“I’m as better as I’m going to be,” Lorna said. “I might as well go, before I lose my nerve.”

“Don’t overdo it,” he warned. “If you feel tired, lay down. I don’t want you getting pneumonia.”

“Me either,” she muttered, stubbing out her cigarette. “Let me get dressed, and let’s do this.”

Some fifteen minutes later they were on their way through the tunnels, and Lorna’s misgivings grew with every step. What the hell did she think she was doing? Being able to call up Von Rached’s repertoire of languages was one thing; she’d been good with them before, during the odd times she had a chance to learn. Science, though…anything beyond basic biology had always been a mystery to her. She had a distinct idea that her odds of fucking this up were far greater than her odds of accomplishing anything. Von Rached had been a damn genius; she, even with the things she’d half inherited from him, was not.

That thought fell apart when they reached the Door, though. Only one lone, pale guard manned it, looking as weak and tired as Lorna still felt. She waved them through with listless disinterest, and when they reached the more populated areas of the DMA, Lorna’s misgivings only deepened.

Even before the massive influx of refugees, she’d never seen the place look so empty. Even those who weren’t sick must be quarantining themselves, because between the Door and the monorail they saw only three people. The tram was running, but they were the only ones on it, and it slid through eerie, breathless quiet. It was so lifeless and deserted she half expected zombies to come lurching out of the doorways. Zombies, or Memories.

She shuddered, and Ratiri looked at her, though he didn’t ask why. He had to be feeling the same thing she was.

Even the shopping district was mostly empty, though here at least there were some signs of life. A few of the stores were still open, and most of the lights were on, but the smattering of people somehow only served to enhance the desolation.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “I didn’t realize this was what Sharley meant by ‘bad’. Master’v understatement, that girl.”

When they finally reached the hospital, they found out where everybody was. It was packed to the gills with what looked like a quarter of the damn population — cots even lined the hallways, filled with people too sick to be sent home. It was loud enough in here, too; doctors and nurses almost had to shout over the arrhythmic symphony of coughing. The air smelled of disinfectant and medicine and too many unwashed bodies, and it sent something stirring in Lorna’s mind, some alien ghost of a memory that was not hers.

“Even the clinic isn’t this bad,” Ratiri murmured. “Maybe I ought to stay up here today, too. Sharley can take Mairead with her. I definitely don’t want her seeing this.”

“No shit,” Lorna muttered. “All right, I’ll hit the lab.” The sight was so daunting that part of her wanted to turn tail and flee — but she’d already been sick, and from the look of it she’d got off very light. As Mairead said, she had an immunity to it now, unless it mutated violently.

 _Antigen shift_ , her mind supplied. That was what had made Spanish flu so deadly, the virus that had been benign in spring mutating into something lethal in the fall. Why did she know that? Why was she so sure of that? She didn’t know, and she wasn’t about to examine it too closely.

She did know where the labs were, though she’d only been there a few times. It was so crowded she had to literally duck under people’s arms along the way, wrinkling her nose at the smell. If it was this bad in here, it had to be unimaginably worse outside.

A little jolt of panic hit her when she reached the laboratory doors. Once she went in, there would be no going back; she’d have to see just what else her brain dredged up. Once upon a time there would have been scientists all over the country working on this, but now she would bet there were precious few facilities even equipped to try. The DMA was probably the best hope anybody had, and even it was barely coping with the load.

Her resolve steeled itself, that alien thing stirring again; when she went in she helped herself to a pile of notes on the counter, lurking in an out-of-the-way corner. She needed to know what was going on, and it didn’t look like anyone had time to explain.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?” A weary scientist she didn’t recognize was glaring at her, a man around her age with sandy, thinning hair, his eyes a little too sunken behind his glasses. She spared him only a brief glance; to her fascinated surprise and mild alarm, she was following the notes easily.

“Reading,” she said. She knew she stuck out like a sore thumb in her oversized patchwork coat, but so what? _You’d think the asshole would be grateful for any help he could get_ , she thought — but then, if he knew who she was, he’d also know she was no doctor.

“Give me those, and get out of here,” he snapped, reaching for the papers.

“Blow me,” she muttered, as she held them out of his way. “I came here to help.”

“And how do you expect to do that? You’re not even a technician.” Yep, he recognized her. He reached for the papers again, and now she did look at him.

“If you would let me read this,” she said shortly, “I might be able to tell you.”

Somebody along the line of microscopes froze, and when she looked further up, she found Yaeko Matsui staring at her. Yaeko, who had worked with Von Rached. Double-damn.

Her harasser must have, too, for now he was looking at her with distinct unease. “Just…stay out of the way,” he said, and left her to it.

She read on in silence, ignoring the bustle in the rest of the lab, and came to several unhappy conclusions. One, this wasn’t influenza as anyone had ever seen it; two, she somehow knew that; three, it was mutating. Something in her spotted the pattern immediately, to her immense disquiet, and wondered how anybody else hadn’t.

“We won’t be able to make a proper vaccine for this,” she said to the room at large, speaking before she thought. “The mutative rate is too fast. It’s going to have to burn itself out.” God, what a thought. If she was right — and she was fairly sure she was — getting sick once was no guarantee of immunity at all. “This isn’t just influenza. This is something else.”

“Thank you for your qualified medical opinion,” the man in the glasses snapped. He looked like he was still half sick himself — it was no wonder he was in such a foul mood — but that alien presence had no patience for it.

“You are quite welcome,” she said dryly. She rose, and shooed a technician out of the way, appropriating his microscope. “Let me look at that.” Having only one good eye meant she had to do quite a lot of fiddling with the microscope, but when it focused, she went very still. She shouldn’t recognize what she was seeing, but most unfortunately, she did. Now she was annoyed and worried. Very, very worried.

“Yaeko,” she said. “Come here.”

Their end of the lab had gone rather quiet, as people paused to watch Yaeko approach Lorna with slight trepidation.

“Look at that,” she said, “and tell me what you see.”

It took a moment for Yaeko to re-focus the lenses, during which time that aggravating man with the glasses drifted over to watch, still radiating disapproval.

“Pneumonoccocos,” Yaeko said. “Traces of Pfeiffer’s.”

“The virus itself,” Lorna said impatiently.

“You can’t see it at such low power,” the man with the glasses said, now beyond irritated with her.

“No, but you can see what is around it,” she retorted, what little patience she had rapidly evaporating. “Anyone who worked on the vaccine for Thorvald’s plague ought to recognize it, so why didn’t you, Yaeko?”

The woman actually flinched. It was Lorna’s voice, Lorna’s accent, but the intonation most definitely wasn’t. The dry, imperious, impatient inflection belonged to a dead man.

“I did,” she said, her voice mostly steady, and cast a dirty look at Doctor Glasses. “Doctor Baker said it was impossible.”

Lorna glared at him, unable to believe anyone could be that stupid. “That virus’s very existence was an impossibility to begin with,’ she said, “yet exist it did, you utter idiot. However it happened, it or something very like it has attached itself to what ought to be garden-variety influenza.”

“Then why is it attacking the normal world, too?” Baker demanded, offended as well as angry.

“That,” she said, “would be what we need to find out. If it continues this cycle, it will shift entirely at least once more before it runs out of susceptible hosts. Meanwhile it might run through half the population.”

This time, he didn’t bother asking how she knew that. She suspected he didn’t want to know. “If we can’t vaccinate for it, what do you suggest we do?” he asked, sarcasm still edging his tone.

“Isolate the m-component,” she said. “We did it once, after all. Without it, the virus itself will at least be less lethal.”

“The component itself has undergone antigen drift, though,” Yaeko protested. “None of you who were vaccinated against it would have gotten sick if it hadn’t. And anyone not vaccinated would die a lot more horribly than anyone has so far.”

“So we re-isolate it. We might be able to come up with a treatment while we’re at it.”

“And how do you expect us to test it?” Baker asked.

That…was where she ran into a problem. Whatever latent Von Rached-bits were rattling around in her head, a lack of ethics wasn’t one of them. “We can figure that out when we have something worth testing,” she said. “Meanwhile, I want any and all notes anybody in this department might have. I need to know everything I can about what exactly it is we’re dealing with.”

“I don’t—” Baker started.

“If you don’t like it, take it up with Gerald,” she said. “If you really feel like wasting his time.”

She turned her back on him, collecting an armload of paper, and headed off to find somewhere quieter. Though she hated to admit it, she thought she could understand why Von Rached was so often frustrated with his colleagues. She could deal with Baker later.

 

~

 

Gerald was far too sick to have anything taken up with him — Baker had decided to go find Katje, but Yaeko snagged him before he could leave.

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “I really wouldn’t. Just let her alone.”

“She’s not a doctor,” he snapped. “She shouldn’t even be here.”

“You didn’t work with Von Rached, did you?” Yaeko asked.

“No,” he said. “Why?”

“Because she sounds just like him,” she said, worried.

“She _moves_ just like him,” one of the techs put in.

“I don’t know how, or why,” Yaeko added. “And I don’t want to. I think getting in her way would be a very bad idea, though.”

“As soon as she screws up, she’s out,” Baker said, grudgingly.

“I don’t think she will,” Yaeko replied quietly. “ _He_ never did. For a while some of us even tried to trip him up, and it never worked. If she’s somehow — acquired — that, I think it really is best to just let her get on with it.” Yaeko had spent too much time being terrified by Von Rached to want to cross anyone who even echoed him.

She didn’t know if it was her words or her expression, but to her relief, Baker subsided. If they were lucky, Lorna might leave them alone, too.


	2. Chapter Two

Ratiri, having heard Gerald was sick, took a detour to go see him — see him, and possibly knock him out if he was still trying to work too hard.

He found not only Gerald, but Katje as well, holed up in their apartment that had grown rather dingy. Gerald was awake, but Katje was so deep asleep she might as well have been in a coma.

“I gave her a sedative,” he said between coughs, leading Ratiri into the living-room. “She wouldn’t slow down. I had to hand little Miranda over to Rachel — somehow, neither of them  are sick, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Ratiri said dryly. He had to step over piles of laundry and scattered papers to get to the couch. Dust had started gathering on the end-tables — Katje _must_ have been sick, or she never would have let that happen. Several bulbs in the track lighting had burnt out and not been replaced, so the room was dim. “I had no idea it was this bad in here.”

“It’s worse out there,” Gerald said, sneezing into a handkerchief. “The ships have quarantined us. Whole damn continent. They’re bringing everything they can from the rest of the world, but there’s still not a lot to be had.”

He clicked on the TV. It was a plasma screen they’d found God only knew where, and it took up the better part of the wall over  the ornamental fireplace. Ratiri hadn’t seen the news in months, and he wasn’t happy with what he heard. “Stay home,” was the blunt advice of a harried-looking doctor at Harborview. “Don’t go out unless you absolutely have to. This isn’t something to be taken lightly. There’s not enough Tamiflu to go around, and we don’t yet have a vaccine. Stay home, stay rested, and stay hydrate.”

It seemed nobody had bothered trying to censor the news. The camera panned freely through Harborview, which was in an even worse state than the DMA. Doctors and nurses were going through the wards in respirators, for God’s sake — the very, very crammed wards. It couldn’t have gone so far to hell very fast; for the first time, Ratiri properly realized how isolated they really were, out on the mountain.

“There will be a food and medical drop at Safeco Field tomorrow at noon,” the reporter said. “Deliveries will be made first to Queen Anne Ward.”

“Ward?” he asked.

“They divvied up the city,” Gerald explained. “Seven hills, seven wards. Somebody out there’s being as smart as anyone can be, in this. So many households are too sick to send anyone out, so they’ve got a delivery system going.”

“That’s…surprisingly efficient.”

“It’s the ships.” Gerald sneezed again, five times in a row. “They set it up. The ones with zombies put them down all over the country, to help. Not enough of them, though.”

“No,” Ratiri murmured. “It wouldn’t be.” The screen showed shots of downtown now, as empty as much of the DMA seemed to be. How many who weren’t there were sick, and how many just afraid? He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

“It hasn’t really hit the Deep South yet,” Gerald went on. “They’ve got their own quarantine. Damn near the rest of the country, though, and southern Canada…Mexico’s had some isolated cases, but they locked down their borders soon enough that it probably won’t spread far.”

“Christ,” Ratiri muttered. “All this time, I thought it was just us. Just the same crap we always get this time of year.” He wished he didn’t know better now.

“Has Sharley said anything?”

Ratiri sighed. “Only that we’re in for it, no matter what,” he said grimly. “Says the only question is how bad it will get.”

“Wonderful.”

Katje started coughing in the bedroom, and Ratiri got up to see to her before Gerald had to.

One look at her dropped a ball of ice into his stomach. Her face was marble-white, but her lips had gone blue, and her coughing had an ugly, alarmingly wet quality. She barely stirred when he touched her forehead, which felt hot as sun-baked asphalt. He had to get her to the hospital, overcrowded zoo though it was.

“We’re going for a walk, Katje,” he said, bundling her into her blanket before he picked her up. She was shockingly light; just how much weight had she lost, since she got sick? How long had she been sick?

“I’m taking her to the hospital,” he said to Gerald, hauling her out into the living-room. “Where’s Geezer?”

Gerald struggled to his feet. “In his apartment. Caleb and Charlese are both down with this, too. He and Gavin have been looking after all four of us.” Panic etched deep lines in his weary face, and Ratiri had to slow down so he could keep up.

“He’s not got it?”

“Are you serious?” Gerald wheezed. “Any virus that tried to attack him would just wind up pickled by all the alcohol.”

Ratiri couldn’t quite manage a smile — not with Katje in the state she was currently in. Her breathing was slow enough, but labored, and her pulse felt sluggish beneath his hand. And she was so warm — he was sweating just holding her. She might as well have been standing in front of a furnace.

Gerald’s footsteps faltered, and Ratiri looked at him. “I’ll come back for you,” he said. “When I’ve got Katje settled. Don’t over-exert yourself or I’ll wind up having to drag you both.” He could probably do it, but he didn’t really want to need to.

Raw anguish overtook his friend’s face, and he understood why. He’d feel the same, if he was too sick to follow someone carrying Lorna off to hospital. But Gerald was a realist; he saw Ratiri’s point.

“I’ll meet you there,” he said, and Ratiri was off as fast as he could go. If this virus attacked violently enough to cause actual cyanosis…Sharley was right. It was only going to get worse.

Katje tried to stir, and he shushed her as he would one of the twins. Her aura had gone grey with the strength of her fever, pale, transparent grey, and her skin was so pallid he could see the fine tracery of her veins beneath it. She couldn’t have been this sick for long, or Gerald would have already had her in hospital.

The confusion in the wards hadn’t changed one bit. Even he, doctor though he was, had a hard time with the smell — sickness-sweat produced its own unique odor, and it was very strong in here. Urine, too; the nurses couldn’t possibly keep up with all the incontinent patients.

“I need oxygen,” he said to the harried man at the triage desk. “ _Now._ ”

He took one look at Katje’s blue lips and paled. “Marat, watch the desk,” he ordered a nurse. “Come on, I’ll find you a room.”

How many oxygen canisters could they even have left, at this point? Could it possibly be enough? Ratiri wove his careful way through the cots lining the hallway, avoiding the racks of saline bags and antibiotics. Those had to be in precious short supply, too, by now. Thank God his family had all been as lucky as they were — the virus must have attenuated before it reached the mountain. They’d been unknowingly vaccinated against the stronger variant.

Katje was wheezing badly by the time they found a room that was already packed with patients, and Ratiri adjusted the bed so she’d be halfway sitting up, rather than lying flat. He fixed the oxygen mask over her face and sat beside her, waiting for Gerald. She was still almost completely unresponsive, but that could just be the lingering effects from the sedative. Cyanosis only stained her lips; the rest of her face was nearly as white as her pillow, her unwashed hair lank and dull.

An exhausted doctor came in with a saline drip and liquid aspirin. She look sick enough herself, and Ratiri put a hand on her arm before she could leave. “Stay with her,” he said. “I’ll take over your round. I’ve already had this thing, so I should be fine, and you really look like you need to rest. Why aren’t any of you wearing respirators? And what the hell are all our healers doing?”

“For the first, we don’t have any,” she coughed. “Miranda probably laid in at some point, but nobody knows where. For the second, the healers are going down with this as fast as the rest of us.”

“Figures,” he muttered. “You stay put. Gerald ought to be here soon, and I’ll check back with you later.”

“Thank you,” she said, incredibly grateful.

Off he went, out into the mess. Much as he wanted to stay with Katje, that doctor looked like hell. He’d passed through it — he could be of much more use out here.

                                               

~

 

Geezer caught up with Gerald halfway to the hospital. “Gavin’s with Caleb and Charlese,” he said. “Went to check on you two and you weren’t there. Where’s Katje?”

“Ratiri took her to the hospital.” Gerald was wheezing terribly by now, as despair threatened to overwhelm him. “Dammit, Geezer, this all went to hell so fast….”

“Slow down,” Geezer ordered, in his best drill-sergeant voice. He was unshaven, and his rumpled flannel shirt looked like he’d slept in it for days, but he sounded like a general. “You won’t do her any good if you drop dead yourself. If Ratiri’s got her, you can bet she’s being taken care of.”

Gerald paused, gasping, and Geezer took one look at him and actually picked him up in a fireman’s carry. For a man pushing seventy, he was amazingly strong, Gerald thought woozily. His head was spinning, but he didn’t actually ask to be put down. At the rate he’d been going, it would have taken him an hour to get there under his own steam.

“Sharley,” he managed. “We need Sharley. Nobody’s in charge right now. She’s done it before, and she can’t get sick.”

He wanted to say more, but before his lips could form the words, he blacked out.

 

~

 

Sharley was already very busy, prepping for a trip to the Other.

She was pretty sure she couldn’t get Jary back here a second time, but they needed some of her supplies, and they needed them badly. It could mean life or death for thousands. “Stay with the twins and Saoirse,” she ordered Marty, who was watching her with anxious, milky eyes. “Saoirse, look after your dad. Niamh, you look after your mama, and Mairead, Pat, you stay put, you hear me?”

“Now, hang on —” Pat started, but his words were cut off by a fit of coughing.

Normally Lorna’s sister would have argued, but the quiet ferocity in Sharley’s eyes nailed her where she stood. Even Marty stared, startled, and Sharley grabbed Mairead’s hand and drew her aside.

“I mean it,” she said. “If you don’t rest now, you’ll get pneumonia, and you _will_ die. Take it easy and you’ll be fine. I’d take you back to Ireland, but Lorna’s gonna need you real soon.”

“What about Niamh?” Mairead whispered. Her unbrushed hair was a mass of red frizz, her face far too pale beneath her freckles.

“Niamh’s immune,” Sharley said, a little more gently. “All your kids are, though the disease hasn’t reached Ireland, and it probably won’t. Quarantine’s effective, even if nothing else in this clusterfuck is.”

“And Shiv’s kid?” Pat asked, wheezing. “And grandkids?” Siobhan had all but quarantined them in her own flat, seemingly unaffected herself.

“The twins, yes. Eris, no. Siobhan’s got the right idea.”

Mairead’s relief was palpable, and Sharley managed to give her a brief smile. Often though she butted heads with Mairead, she was a good woman, and all her maddening, bossy things were done out of love. “Why does Lorna need me?” she said. “She won’t get sick again, will she?”

Sharley shook her head. “Probably not,” she said. “No, she’s gonna need you to remind her who she really is. Line’s gonna get real blurry real soon.” There wasn't time to say more. Even a brief trip to the Other could take days here — days they didn’t have. And she couldn’t manipulate Earth’s Time if she wasn’t here.

Out she went, into the chilly, heavy grey day, and focused. She was in the Other before a human could have blinked — on Jary’s ship, cruising the red sky over her father’s fortress.

She was mildly surprised; she’d never managed to control where she wound up before. Surprised, and relieved, since it meant she wouldn’t waste any more seconds than she had to.

After the cold damp of Earth, the Other’s dry heat came as something of a shock even to her. The heat, the bitterness of the air, juxtaposed with the sweetness of the ship’s wood, and the hot wind stirring her hair. The creaking of masts and sails, and the startled looks of the nearby crew. It had been so long since she’d lived on the ship that most of them weren’t familiar with her anymore.

“I need Jary,” she said. Being here made her heart ache a little, but she wasn’t tempted to stay. For now and the immediate future, her home was on Earth, on the mountain, in a land currently packed with the sick and dying.

“I need help,” she said, when Jary approached. “Lotta America’s a bit fucked right now.”

“I know,” Jary said grimly. “The Earth ships have been sending back updates. I can’t go with you, honey.”

“Figured you couldn’t.” She swung the huge backpacker’s pack off her shoulders. “I need medicine, something we can actually duplicate. They’re working on a treatment, but not fast enough, and there’s only so much I can hurry it along without creating a paradox.”

“Az’ll kill me for this,” Jary muttered, shaking her head and wiping her oil-stained hands on her jeans. “C’mon. I’ll get you outta here as fast as I can. How the hell did you not see this coming?”

“I did,” Sharley said, following. The wood felt blessedly warm beneath her bare feet. “Just not this bad. Something shifted, something I can’t see yet. Might be I can do something about it, but I dunno what, and I can’t count on finding out in time.” Even now, there were some frustrating limits on her abilities. Time she could mess with a bit, without creating damage, but she didn’t dare try to screw around with reality again. She was a god, but she wasn’t infallible.

“I know.” Jary’s grey eyes were unusually serious when they reached her storeroom, and she started sorting through bottles, glass clinking as she did. It smelled of dried herbs in here, dusty and bittersweet. It smelled of childhood. Sharley did miss this ship, though she knew she couldn’t go back. Childhood and humanity were both one, but she didn’t mind anymore. Now she could make a difference as she was, even if it wasn’t as big a one as she would like.

“This stuff’s highly concentrated,” Jary said, carefully loading the pack. “It’s a treatment, but it’s not a vaccine. It’s not a miracle cure, either,” she warned. “Don’t let people think it is, but it’ll help. Pass some along to all the Earth ships, and let them give it to the hospitals. They can dilute the hell outta it.”

“Thanks,” Sharley said, hugging her. “I better go, but I’ll visit later, when things calm down. Got a lot to tell you.”

“I can see that. Go on, kid.” Jary kissed her forehead. “Go help save the world. Again.”

It was going to be a lot more complicated than that, but she could help. She could mitigate the damage some, even if she couldn’t stop it.

 

~

 

Gerald was sound asleep on a chair in Katje’s room, when Ratiri finally found his way back there. He hadn’t felt so drained even during his twenty-hour shifts during the war, but he had to check in before he went home.

Katje’s condition had improved a little. The cyanosis had left her lips, and she was asleep now, rather than unconscious — any doctor knew there was a distinct difference. Given enough palliative care, she would probably pull through.

Geezer lurked in a chair in the corner, and Ratiri had a feeling he wasn’t going to budge for anything. He’d lost one foster-daughter already; he was going to make damn sure he didn’t lose another. His eyes were bloodshot, and he smelled of state sweat and cigarettes, but he’d settled in for the duration. “Gavin’s got a good handle on Caleb and Charlese,” he said. “Kid’s still healthy as a horse, knock wood.” He eyed Ratiri critically. “You look like shit, though.”

“Thanks,” Ratiri said dryly. “Still getting over this myself. Have you seen Lorna?”

Geezer shook his head. “No, but some four-eyes doctor tried to come in and bitch at Gerald about her. Told him I’d punch his lights out if he didn’t scram. Whatever she’s doing, she’s seriously freaking ’em all out.”

Ratiri would bet he knew why, and how. “I’d better go find her. Take it easy, Geezer — I don’t want you coming down with this yourself.”

Geezer produced a tarnished silver hip-flask. “Got all the vaccination I need right here. Go find your wife before she kills somebody.”

He wasn’t joking, and Ratiri grimaced, not sure he wanted to know just what Lorna was up to in the lab.

 

~

 

What Lorna was up to, it turned out, was indeed freaking out everyone around her. And one look at her told him why.

For all she was nearly a foot and a half shorter than Von Rached, her posture, as she bent over the microscope, was identical — one hand rested on the edge of the counter, the other scribbling notes without her looking at the page. Even the subtle tension in her shoulders was the same. Half these scientists had worked with him during the war — they had to be seeing the same thing Ratiri did.

She was so single-mindedly focused that she didn’t even register his entrance, and for a moment he was actually hesitant to get her attention. He’d seen faint echoes of Von Rached in her before, but there was nothing faint about this; even during the press conference, she hadn’t channeled the bastard so completely.

“Lorna,” he said at last, and when she looked up at him, he froze. For one horrible second, stark terror jagged through him, rooting him where he stood.

There was nothing at all of her in her expression. The intensity of her concentration, the trace of irritation in her good eye — if Von Rached had possessed her like a demon, the effect couldn’t have been more complete. Where the hell was Lorna, in all that?

Then she blinked, and it was gone, or half-gone. She came back, though not entirely.

“You need to rest, Lorna,” he said firmly, forcing down his unease.

“No,” she said flatly, “I don’t.” Good God, even part of her accent was gone. Just what had that son of a bitch really left with her?

“Yes, you do,” he said, even more firmly. “Rest, eat, bathe. The twins will worry if you don’t come home with me.”

Those seemed to be the magic words. She blinked again, and sighed. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be back tomorrow, you lot. Don’t fuck anything up while I’m gone.”

Ratiri almost sagged with relief. That was her, all her; it was as if some switch had been flipped, returning her to herself.

His relief seemed shared by damn near everyone else in the room — had tension been measured by a barometer, the needle would have plummeted. Nobody said anything as she left, probably too afraid of bringing back that alien thing that had so thoroughly possessed her.

She remained herself as they wound their way home, all the exhaustion she’d held at bay slamming into her like a cement truck. Ratiri was pretty sure she wasn’t even aware of how total her transformation had been. He wasn’t about to tell her, either. Let that sleeping demonic doctor lie, as long as it could. He never wanted to see that expression again. The tunnel was cold, and she was shivering and rubbing at the scar on her shoulder by the time they reached the warmth of the house. Sharley wasn’t there, but Mairead and Pat were, with a pot of soup waiting. The house was bright and cozy, the twins napping with their books while Saoirse and Marty played checkers. It was home, and it was a relief.

“How is it up there?” Pat asked, looking from him to Lorna with more than a little concern. Lorna only yawned, and Ratiri steered her gently toward their room. She could eat later; right now she looked ready to drop in her tracks.

“You and Sharley didn’t do it justice,” he said, all but collapsing onto a kitchen chair. His feet and head ached abominably, his throat was sandpaper-dry, and he was so hungry his stomach was cramping. Mairead dished him up some soup and fragrant jasmine tea.

“I wasn’t anywhere near the hospital,” she said, sitting across from him and cradling a steaming mug in her hands. “Sharley went off to get some help, but she didn’t say how long she’d be gone.”

“If she went to the Other, it might be a while.” The soup went down like manna from heaven, and he shut his eyes, savoring it.

“What’s wrong?” Mairead asked, and when he looked at her, he found her regarding him closely. Dammit, she could be as perceptive as her sister.

“Just worried,” he hedged. “About far too much. I’m exhausted, too.”

“You look like it.” She didn’t press the point, though he knew she would eventually. She didn’t seem capable of leaving anything well enough alone. “Go sleep,” she added. “You look like Death on a cracker. I’ll see all the children get to bed.”

He needed no second urging. When he reached the bed, he found Lorna already deep asleep. She was still too pale, the shadows under her eyes too dark, but in sleep at least she looked entirely like herself. No trace of Von Rached in her features now.

Unfortunately, he had a feeling that would change when she went back to work.


	3. Chapter Three

When Lorna woke the next morning, she found she didn’t want to get up at all. Her head was sore and fuzzy — it felt for all the world like she had a hangover, though she’d done no drinking yesterday. Her bed was warm and soft, so she listened to her body’s demands and stayed put. She didn’t know what time it was, but Ratiri was already up. The house smelled like pancakes and tea, but right now she’d murder someone for a cup of coffee. Caffeine might help her aching muscles, and clear the fog out of her brain. Why were her thoughts so blurred? She found she could call up very few details of the previous day, and wondered just how drained she’d been when she finally passed out.

When she eventually opened her eyes, her good one had to struggle to focus; when she looked out the window, she found the world had been painted white overnight. The sky was positively dumping snow — fat wet flakes that had already piled up a good three inches. When she went out to smoke, she took a spare quilt with her.

It was completely silent outside, all the normal mountain-sounds muffled by the snow. God, her head hurt — what had she been _doing_ yesterday? She still couldn’t remember, and that…worried her.

A shivering Ratiri came out to give her a cup of coffee, tar-thick the way she liked it. Bless him, he might as well have been a telepath, he knew her so well. He too looked worried, but she didn’t yet have the energy to ask why. She had an uneasy feeling she wouldn’t like the answer. The coffee almost blistered her throat, steam rising to join the smoke of her cigarette. She was still too tired to register the ache of her scars, though it would make itself known to her sooner or later.

When she went inside, she downed some toast and four aspirin, trying not to wince at the children’s usual racket. Mercifully, they migrated to the living-room before she’d finished her coffee.

“How do you feel?” Ratiri asked her carefully.

“Like four-day-old sick,” she said, sitting at the table with her head in her hands. He came over to pick at her aura, and immediately the ache and fatigue started to drain away.

Mairead snorted, popping more bread into the toaster. “You look like it,” she said. “Take it easier today, baby sister.”

“Don’t really remember what I did yesterday,” she mumbled, debating whether more coffee was worth the walk to the pot.

Ratiri’s hands stilled — not a good sign, but she didn’t want to ask why in front of her siblings. Besides, she was still too damn tired to care yet.

He started up again, and by the time he’d finished fishing the gunk out, Mairead brought her more toast and coffee, and she felt like she’d stepped into Shangri-La.

“Angels, the pair’v you. If I was the Pope, you’d both be up for sainthood.”

She didn’t see the look Ratiri exchanged with her sister, but Mairead went to join the kids in the living-room, leaving them alone.

“You really don’t remember yesterday?” he asked, sitting and picking at his toast.

“No. Must have been too tired.” But she knew, looking at him, that wasn’t it. Not only it, anyway. “What?”

“You scared me,” he said, blunt as Sharley. “When I went to take you home…it was like Von Rached had taken you over. And the fact that you can’t remember only makes me more nervous.”

She stared at him, coffee forgotten. “What d’you mean?”

“You stood like him,” he said quietly. “You moved like him, you looked like him. You know that expression he had — that kind of quietly impatient, I’m-dealing-with-a-bunch-of-idiots look?”

She nodded, and her heart juked left.

“That was you. You scared the shit out of everyone in the lab.”

Her brows drew together and she frowned, kicking at her faulty memory. “I sort of remember that,” she said. “Looking over all the notes, and actually understanding them. After that it sort of just goes…grey.”

“I’m not sure you should go back,” he said seriously. “Watching you was absolutely terrifying.” He wasn’t exaggerating, either.

Her frown deepened, and she stared into the black depths of her coffee, immensely troubled. They needed all the help they could get, but what if she got…stuck like that? But then, Sharley had been the one to say she should go. She of all people would know if there was any danger of that — surely she wouldn’t have suggested it if there was. “I don’t know,” she said. “How much did I actually get done?”

“I’m not sure,” Ratiri admitted. “I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”

“I ought to try it again, I think,” she said, fiddling with her mug. “Sharley didn’t say there was any danger, did she?”

“No,” he said slowly, “but she didn’t warn me of that, either. Gerald wants her, whenever she gets back. Katje’s too sick to get out of bed, and Geezer’s got his hands full.”

Lorna was quiet a moment, still staring at the dregs of her coffee. When she looked up at him, her expression was grave. “I’m going back,” she said. “To look in on Katje, if nothing else. Maybe what happened yesterday was a fluke. I won’t know until I test it.”

Neither one of them believed that, but if she could help, if whatever happened to her didn’t harm her, she couldn’t exactly refuse. Not in this kind of crisis.

Her headache was mostly gone by the time she’d showered, hot water soothing her scalp. She didn’t at first realize she was scrubbing with her loofah rather harder than was necessary — when she did, she registered that she still felt a little unclean. No amount of soap would wash it away, either. Maybe this really was a bad idea, but she had to test it.

She dressed warmly, heavy black sweatpants and three layers of shirts, not letting herself think of much past the falling snow outside. It was pretty, and she needed prettiness if she was going to confront anything potentially monstrous in her own head. Soft, pure, clean — everything she wasn’t.

Ratiri held her hand all the way through the tunnels, into the deathly hush of the DMA quarantine. Her grip was a little too tight, her fingers a little too cold, but she went, and when they reached the hospital, she squared her shoulders and headed for the lab. They would see what they would see.

 

~

 

 

Ratiri was dismayed to find things had somehow got even worse overnight.

More doctors and nurses had gone down sick, lying either in the hospital or their own rooms. A group of lay people had been drafted as auxiliary aides, but they didn’t know what they were doing, and more than a few couldn’t stomach what they saw.

Not that he could blame them. Urine and vomit appeared faster than it could be cleaned up, some of it tinged bloody pink. The worst, though, were the orderlies who came through with white-draped gurneys, forcing anyone else to squeeze aside among the cots. There were so many, one every few minutes. What on Earth were they doing with all the bodies? It wasn’t like the DMA had its own graveyard.

When he found Katje, he was relieved to find that she at least looked a little better. She was woozy, but conscious, and the dreadful blue tinge had left her lips. She was still wearing a full oxygen mask, though, and looked weak as a newborn kitten.

Gerald was still asleep, but at least someone had got him a cot and blankets, lifting him off the cold floor. His face was red with fever, but his breathing sounded nominally okay.

“What the hell’re you doing here?” Geezer asked bluntly. “You still look like shit.” He’d got a folding card-table from somewhere, that was currently scattered with coffee-ring-stained paperwork.

“I’m fine,” he said “And Katje, you look better.”

She nodded sleepily, not trying to speak, and he wondered what she’d been doped with. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t hospital-issue.

“You gotta get Sharley up here,” Geezer muttered. “I’m about ready to start shooting people. Middle of an epidemic and some asshole’s trying to demand ten thousand forks for the cafeteria.”

“I’ll send her when she gets back,” Ratiri promised. “She’s still not home yet. How are Caleb and Charlese?”

Geezer’s expression went bleak. “Caleb’s in here,” he said. “Kid looked like he’d pull through, but then he took a big nosedive. Doctor says his odds aren’t great. Gavin and Charlese are doing the same thing I am in here. Vigil.”

God, Ratiri wished he still had Kali’s gift. Not being able to do enough for the dying had been bad, but now he couldn’t do anything.

His name reached his ears over the PA system before he could brood too long, and he grimaced. If Lorna had already pissed someone off past the point of all endurance, that had to be some kind of record.

“If it’s Baker, tell him I said to fuck off,” Geezer said. “He kept trying to barge in here and bother Gerald and Katje yesterday. Told him if he tried it one more time I’d knock all his teeth out.”

Ratiri groaned. This was not at all what any of them needed, dammit. “I’ll pass that on,” he promised.

He nearly slammed straight into Orla on his way out. She at least looked perfectly healthy, if rather tired — her pale hair a mess and eyes red from lack of sleep. He picked at her aura while she passed a stack of rumpled papers to Geezer.

“Julifer okay?” he asked, when she turned to him.

“Sicker than a fuckin’ dog, but she’s getting better. Fever broke last night, thank God. So long’s I don’t come down with it too, we should be all right.”

Ratiri’s name sounded over the PA again, and he swore he was going to kick whoever was paging him. “I have to run,” he said. “Don’t let Julifer get up for at least a week,” he called over his shoulder.

A hazardous puddle nearly sent him sliding into the wall — water left over from cleaning up some poor person’s vomit. Once again he had to stand aside to let a gurney past, draped ghostly white, and he wished all the patients in the hallways didn’t need to see that. It wasn’t exactly encouraging.

When he reached the lab, he discovered it was indeed Doctor Baker who had paged him — however, the man had a legitimate reason to be angry. He and four other scientists stood huddled around the lab door, talking at cross-purposes, but eventually Ratiri got the gist of it. Lorna had locked them out.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. That was exactly the kind of thing Von Rached would have done; apparently yesterday hadn’t been a fluke. Damn.

“What is _wrong_ with her?” Baker demanded. His face was mottled red and white — he wasn’t just pissed, he was scared. Ratiri actually had a measure of sympathy for him, even if he did seem like a bit of a jerk. Poor bastard was only trying to do his job, looking none too healthy to boot, and then Von Rached Lite sailed in and threw him out.

“I’m not sure you want the answer to that.” Ratiri rapped on the door, and tried to peer in the window, only to discover someone had taped a sheet of paper over it. “Lorna,” he called. “Lorna, let me in. This is ridiculous.”

No answer. He looked at Baker. “Why did she kick you out?”

The man looked somewhat guilty. “I told her she was doing it wrong,” he said. “She mixed up some dye I’d never heard of to stain the slides, and when I said so, she…changed. I’ve never seen anything like it. For a moment I thought she was going to kill me.”

Ratiri sighed. That was Von Rached, all right. “I’ll see if I can pry her out of there,” he said, “but I’m not making any promises. She might not even let _me_ in.” He knocked again, harder. “Lorna, dammit, open this door. You can’t just throw people out like that. They’re just trying to do their jobs.”

She wrenched it open, and he recoiled before he could help it. He’d thought her transformation was bad yesterday, but this was somehow worse. Even her blind eye had gone ice-cold — which shouldn’t even be _possible_ , for God’s sake — and her expression was a mask of somewhat haughty irritation. “Yes,” she said, “I can. And if these idiots keep interrupting me, I can do much worse.”

Ratiri felt the blood drain from his face. How had he not thought of that? Von Rached made threats like that all the time, and Lorna had the power to back them up if she chose. Normally she would never do it, but right now he wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t scramble somebody’s brain like an egg.

“Lorna,” he said carefully, “if they’ll leave you alone, you need to let them back in. We need all the help on this we can get.” He was going to strangle Sharley for ever suggesting this whole thing in the first place. She had to have known this might happen. The fact that Lorna remembered so little of yesterday suggested her own mind had probably checked out again now; for all intents and purposes, he really was facing Von Rached. This had to be handled with extreme care.

“Fine,” she said. “So long as they stay out of my way.” She marched back into the lab without another word, and Ratiri glanced at Baker, who had gone quite pale. “Are you sure you even want to go back in there?”

He had to give the man a little credit. Baker swallowed, and nodded. “I’m not about to be driven out of my own lab entirely.”

“Be careful,” Ratiri said. “If you leave her alone, she ought to leave you alone, too.” He definitely wasn’t letting her come tomorrow, even if he had to sedate her to keep her away. With any luck, the rest of them could go off the notes she made.

Somebody paged him again, and he had to fight not to grind his teeth. He was being called to Katje’s office, which probably meant one thing.

Sharley had to be home. And oh, she was going to hear about this.

                                                                                               

~

 

Sharley _was_ home, and she knew she was in for a tirade and a half. It had to be got out of the way, though.

Katje’s office was a mess. Paper covered every inch of her desk, and even carpeted half the floor. Sharley was struggling to organize it when Ratiri burst in — a Ratiri incandescent with rage.

“What did you do?” he demanded, without preamble. “What the hell did you _do_?” His face had gone ashen, his pupils dilated until there was little grey left in his eyes. The Wolf was well on its way to total ascendancy.

She sat back in Katje’s chair, regarding him steadily. “What I had to,” she said. “This won’t hurt her, and we need it. If she doesn’t do this, a lot more people are gonna die.”

“How do you know that?” he asked, collapsing into the other chair and crushing a stack of papers.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “ _Duh_ ,” she said. “God of Time here, remember? Right now we’re at a seven on the Sphincter scale, but if she doesn’t do this it’ll go up to eleven. I really mean it when I say it’s not gonna hurt her. Scare her, maybe, and everyone else, but it won’t do her any harm.”

“What if she hurts someone else?” he said. “She’s got the power to do it, and Von Rached had no compunction about screwing around in someone else’s head.”

“She hasn’t lost all her standards, even now,” Sharley said gently. “She still has some ethics, because they’re the core of who she is. Even this can’t override that. She might break somebody’s arm, but she’d do that anyway if she was pissed off enough.”

He had to concede that point, at least, even if he wasn’t happy about it. “How?” he asked, bleak. “How is this even possible? I knew he left some latent knowledge in her head, but this is more than that. This is like…well, it’s like watching when the Stranger took over you. She’s just not there, and he is. I’m not sure I can handle knowing how much of him is still lurking in her mind.”

She reached across the desk, but didn’t quite touch his hand. “It won’t last,” she said. “This will burn itself out, though hopefully not before she’s come up with something viable. She had to get it out somehow anyway, or it never woulda gone away. Just think of it like draining mental poison. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

“I hope you’re right.” He looked drained himself, drained and bleaker than ever.

“Just take her home every night, and make sure she sleeps. Von Rached pushed himself too far, but he had the constitution to handle it, and she doesn’t. She’s gonna feel like she has a hangover every morning, too, so make sure she eats right. She’ll be fine, Ratiri — it’s still her, under all that, just like it always me under the Stranger. Like you are, under the Wolf. We all have our demons, but hers will go away, in time.”

He didn’t say anything. It was cold comfort and Sharley knew it, but it was the truth. She knew from long and bitter experience that the truth was often an ugly thing. “Meanwhile, I’ve gotta see if I can figure out what the hell’s been going on around here. You should go back to your clinic, and take Mairead with you. This will pass, Ratiri — when have I ever lied to you?”

“Never,” he conceded. “But you’re as bad as Geezer,” he grumbled. “‘Do this, don’t do that, but I won’t tell you why.’”

“Nature of messing around with the future, unfortunately.” She shook her head. “Go on, Ratiri. Go do your thing. I’m sorry as hell you have to, but you do. We all do.” He left, in no better mood than he’d arrived, and Sharley rubbed her temples.

“This,” she said, “sucks.”

 _“I know,”_ Sinsemilla said. _“But it’s necessary.”_

“Necessity blows. All right, you guys, let’s deal with this mess.”

 _“Oh,”_ Kurt groused, _“goody.”_

 

~

 

In the lab, in spite of his fear, Baker was having a hard time keeping his temper.

He tried to keep to himself, but Lorna’s methods made no sense to him. She jumped straight to too many conclusions without properly testing them, which to his mind was unforgivable. The annoying thing, though, was that so far she’d always been right.

“If she’s really got all Von Rached’s memories, she just has more to go on than we do,” Yaeko said quietly. “He came up with the vaccine, after all. If some mutant strain of Thorvald’s virus really has attached itself to this influenza, she’ll know more about it by default. He never really explained it.”

“Was he really this obnoxious?”

“He was worse,” Yaeko whispered. “A few times he locked everyone out of the lab. He barely ate, and he almost never slept. At least she goes home at night.”

“ _Went_ home,” Baker corrected. “Who knows what she’ll do today.”

“You do realize I can hear you,” Lorna said, not looking up from her microscope, and they both jumped. The creepiest part wasn’t her sarcasm, it was the shift in her accent. A lot of the brogue had left it, replaced by something not quite American. “Are we working, or is this a social gathering?”

Baker scowled, but Yaeko laid a warning hand on his arm. Lorna’s temper could vile enough when she was herself; nobody really wanted to know what it would be like in combination with this phantom Von Rached. Probably potentially lethal.

Baker, still scowling, went back to his microscope, but he wisely said nothing more.

 

~

 

Evening in the DMA.

Lights in the private rooms were dimmed to save energy, while doctors and nurses struggled to make their patients comfortable enough to sleep. There was no hope of quiet, though; it was nonstop coughing from one end of the hospital to the other. The outlying areas powered down, too — everything save the apartments. There were too many sick people who needed electricity, but the public areas, the business districts, were dark save for faint yellow emergency lights, that cast more shadows than they banished. The smell of sickness permeated the entire complex, the almost indefinable odor of thousands of people desperately ill.

In the weak glow of a single lamp, Gavin sat in Caleb’s room, his head in his hands. Charlese and four other patients were also jammed into it; he barely had room to sit. They were asleep, but Caleb was fast passing into a coma. His still face had taken on a dusky, leaden, almost blue tinge, and though Gavin didn’t known just what that meant, he knew it couldn’t be anything good.

At least Charlese seemed to be stabilizing. Her fever had gone down a few degrees, and her cough was less violent—but if she lost Caleb, God knew what would happen to her. They’d been together since they were fourteen.

And there was nothing Gavin could do about any of it. He couldn’t heal them, couldn’t help them; all he could do was keep vigil, as thousands of others were doing all over the DMA, wondering if their loved ones would live or die.

He’d been making the rounds all day, checking on his gang. A good half of them were sick, and a quarter of that half weren’t going to make it. He was no doctor, but he’d noticed a kind of pattern in it. Those who got sick gradually usually lived, but the ones who came down with it hard and fast often didn’t have a chance. And even gradual sickness was no guarantee of survival; Caleb had had this thing for a week, and only gotten worse. If he hadn’t so destroyed his body all his life he might have had a better chance, but as it was…Gavin wasn’t an idiot. He knew where this was heading.

The worst part, though, the one that scared the shit out of him and a lot of other people, was the blood. Not just what the patients coughed up, like they had TB or something, but the nosebleeds — hell, some of them even had blood leaking out their eyes. A doctor told him it was mucosal hemorrhaging, and that it wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. It was the blueness that was the problem, whatever caused it. Dangerous or not, it looked terrible, and he’d gone through every rag he had, wiping away people’s bloody snot. Turned his stomach — snot, for some reason, was the only thing he couldn’t handle — but he’d only puked twice.

He was still sitting, staring out the door and feeling utterly useless, when he saw Sharley go by, gliding down the hallway like a silent, blue-haired ghost. He hauled himself to his feet, carefully navigating the jam of cots, and followed her.

“What gives?” he asked quietly. “Where you been?”

She turned, and looked at him with that damn spooky stillness. “Getting help,” she said. “My godmother sent me home with something I need to give the lab. Come with, if you like.”

He shouldn’t leave Caleb and Charlese, but he had to get out of that room a while or he’d lose it. He followed as quietly and carefully as he could, trying not to jostle anyone. It was noisier near the lab, with fewer patients. A lot of worried, angry people were gathered at the nurses’ station nearest the door, and when Sharley tried it, she found it locked.

“Lorna?” she asked, glancing at the huddle, and someone nodded. Sharley sighed, shook her head — and ripped the door right off its hinges.

Several people screamed, and even Gavin jumped. It wasn’t every day you saw a woman built like a beanpole tear apart solid steel.

“You got mail,” she said, stepping inside, and he, having nothing better to do, followed. Once he got a good look around, he froze.

Nearly everyone had retreated to the far end of the room when the door went bye-bye. Everybody but Lorna, and one look at her almost made him back out.

He’d only ever seen Von Rached in her memories that one time, but once was all he needed to recognize what he saw now. The lights were on in Lorna’s head, but she definitely wasn’t the one home. “A tad overdramatic, Sharley,” she said dryly, and Sharley actually twitched. Gavin didn’t blame her, either. How the hell could someone who looked and sounded nothing like Von Rached seem so close to identical?

“Yeah, well, you locked it,” Sharley said, fishing a package out of her coat. “Jary gave me something for you guys to work on. Not a vaccine, but a treatment.”

Lorna took it, and her deft fingers seemed much longer than they actually were while she unwrapped it. In it were four glass bottles, two blue and two green, filled with something that sloshed when she moved them. “What is it?” she asked.

“It came from Jary — how the hell should I know? She said you need to dilute it.”

“The rest of you can handle that,” she said, setting the bottles aside and turning back to her microscope. “I’m busy.”

“Not for long, you’re not,” Sharley retorted. “It’s quitting time.”

Lorna ignored her.

“I mean it, Lorna Saoirse Duncan,” Sharley said, an edge to her voice that could have cut diamonds. “You snap outta it and come back to yourself, or I swear I’ll cold-cock you.”

She grabbed Lorna’s hand, and it was like her touch flipped some switch. Green eye and white blinked, and the distant hauteur left them. Her entire posture changed, tension draining away, and even Gavin didn’t dare speak until Sharley had led her away.

“What,” he asked, when they were out of earshot, “the fuck was that?”

An audible sigh of relief came from the far end of the lab. “Something I wish I never needed to see again,” a tiny Japanese woman said. “Something — some _one_ — who ought to be dead.”

He considered questioning her further, and decided he didn’t want to. He’d better get back to Caleb and Charlese, and try like hell to forget what he’d just seen.

 

~

 

Ratiri took a detour to Gerald and Katje’s apartment before he went home. It was the only place he knew of with a working TV, and though he didn’t really want to know what was going on out in the world, he felt like he ought to watch the news. With Katje and Gerald sick, and Geezer occupied looking after them, Sharley was the only one who knew what everyone else was going through. And, pissed though he was at her, he felt it wasn’t fair to leave her alone with that burden.

So he sat in the cluttered, dusty apartment, wishing he had some Scotch while he channel-surfed. Katje had some crème de menth, but his stomach curdled at the mere thought.

NBC was going strong, currently live in New York City. It had only been partly repopulated to begin with, but now it looked damn near empty. The only people on the streets were police in respirators, and a few groups of deliverymen going from building to building. Quite a few zombies among them — probably passing out supplies from the ships.

It was as grey and dismal over the city as it was over most of Washington — sullen, heavy clouds that threatened rain but hadn’t yet delivered. Other than those few pedestrians and supply vans, the only signs of life were scattered window-lights, and those were far fewer than they had been before the war. No other traffic, not even bicycles; the entire city seemed to be under an even stricter quarantine than the DMA.

“The ships today made several deliveries to hospitals around the five boroughs,” the reporter was saying. She alone wasn’t wearing a respirator, though she did have a white surgical mask. It had to just be for show, since those would no more stop a virus than chicken-wire. “They dropped off ingredients for what they claim may be an effective treatment, though not a cure, for this strain of influenza. Similar deliveries, they say, have been made all over the country, brought by the undead crew to avoid spreading the contagion to the ships themselves.” It almost amused him, that even now so many people had a problem with the word ‘zombie’.

“Reports have come in that Mexican officials believe they have contained the disease, and are halting repatriation of civilians to the United States and Canada.” That was a relief. Less fuel for the fire, at least.

“Today we also had our first report from the Department of Magical Affairs,” she added, and Ratiri’s eyebrows went up — who could have done that? Sharley? It sure as hell hadn’t been Katje or Gerald.

“Sharley Corwin, current acting head during Katje Hansen’s illness says, and I quote, ‘We’ve closed all the Doors to keep anyone from spreading this outside North America. It’s a mess in here, but we’re working on a vaccine, and meanwhile use that stuff I gave the ships. Over half our population are sick right now, so we won’t be letting anyone in or out until we have something worth giving. Until then, be careful and don’t be stupid’.”

He snorted. “Professional, Sharley. Really professional.”

“As of yet, no one seems to know why this influenza is so lethal. Scientists at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta say it’s a strain they’ve never seen before, and urge people to be as cautious as they can.”

The picture cut to a pre-recorded press conference, and an elderly Asian man in a white coat. “This must be taken seriously,” he said. “Influenza is highly contagious in any form, but the severity of this type, combined with an ongoing shortage of treatment resources, means we all must be doubly cautious. Stay in your homes and wait for deliveries — do not leave unless absolutely necessary. Those who are ill should rest and recuperate a full two weeks after the last of their symptoms, to avoid pneumonia. Until we have some kind of vaccine, the best we can do is uphold quarantine and try to keep it from spreading further.

“Those showing symptoms are no longer contagious. Emphasis for them must be on personal care. An individual is likely to infect others before his or her symptoms appear, which is also when they are most likely to be among people they can infect. Stay in your homes, and wait for further information.”

The reporter appeared on screen again. “People all over the country are doing just that, with communities forming their own personal quarantines. The ships will continue to ferry supplies as they can, and their captains have promised to do everything in their ability to mitigate the damage.”

He clicked the TV off, and sat a while in the darkness. He wanted Lorna’s notes, everything she’d come up with, but he was not a virologist, and if she was channeling Von Rached as thoroughly as she appeared to be, he probably wouldn’t be able to follow them anyway. With a heavy sigh, he stood and headed homeward, through silent hallways and equally silent tunnels. The snow in the yard had deepened; it was up to his knees now, all that white making the night seem brighter than it actually was. Flakes hit his face and melted, frosting his hair in the brief time it took him to reach the house.

A blast of warm air hit him when he went inside, and a twin attached themselves to each of his legs. The house smelled like gumbo — Sharley had, as promised, brought Lorna home, and apparently also made dinner. Jerry was griping that Aunt Mairead wouldn’t let them go play in the snow even though they were totally better, honest. Marty was lurking on top of the fridge, Niamh was curled up on the couch with a quilt and a book, Saoirse was napping, and somewhere in the sitting-room, Mairead the Elder was bickering with Sharley. The house was loud, warm, alive — the rest of the country might be going to hell, but at least his home wasn’t.

“Where’s your Mam?” he asked, shrugging out of his snow-covered coat.

“ _She’s taking a nap. Sharley said to leave her alone until you got home.”_ Mairead detached herself from his leg, wrinkling her nose when snow-water dripped from his sleeve to her face.

“I’ll go see her. You two better go stop Sharley and your aunt killing one another.”

 _“Why would we want to stop it?”_ Jerry asked. _“They’re more entertaining than TV. Uncle Pat’s keeping score with a card.”_

Marty laughed so hard she fell off the fridge, and Ratiri shook his head as he made his way down the short hall to the bedroom. Yes, his house was definitely alive — even the members who technically weren’t.

He found Lorna curled up on the bed in the dark, but she wasn’t asleep. She was staring out the window at the falling snow, her hair unbraided and tangled around her. He sat beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder, and she closed hers over it.

“I’m scared,” she said quietly.

What could he say to that? What reassurance could he possibly give her? There was none. “I know,” he said. “I am, too.”

Her fingers gave his a light squeeze. “I can’t remember anything,” she whispered. “Again. Nothing between leaving this morning and coming home.”

He touched her hair with his other hand, and she rolled over to face him. “That’s not entirely true. I remember some things, but they’re disjointed, fuzzy. Like a dream. Or a nightmare.”

“Sharley says it will be all right,” he said, pulling her up and resting her head on his shoulder. “That it will go away when this is over.”

“I wish I could believe that. Every time I’ve thought this was over, it’s just morphed into something else. We’ll never be free. I’ll never be free.”

“That’s awfully pessimistic, for you,” he murmured.

“My internal optimist keeps getting shot in the head. Whatever I’m doing might be helping, but it still scares the living hell out’v me.”

“It’s this entire situation, for me,” he admitted, running his fingers through her tangled hair, watching the snow outside. Light from the kitchen window made the flakes glow. “I went and watched the news, before I came home. This is worse than I thought, but people are actually being smart about it.”

“How so?”

He told her about the quarantines, the massive organization of the ships — everything the reporter said, even if he couldn’t quote it verbatim.

“They learned,” Lorna murmured. “From 1918.”

He cast a slightly wary glance at the top of her head. “How so?”

“In 1918, it was wartime. They didn’t tell people shit about it, for fear of damaging morale — they actually tried to downplay it. They probably couldn’t have contained it anyway, but they didn’t even try. At least they did learn, in the last century.”

“How do you — is that his memory?”

She shook her head against his shoulder. “No. That’s like the languages — it’s just kind’v…there. Knowledge without context.” She shivered, and fell silent. Ratiri couldn’t even imagine how very disturbing this whole thing must be like for her. So many pieces of her dead enemy in her mind, and they still didn’t know just how many.

Gently, he prodded her to sit up, and went to get her hairbrush. By the light of a single bedside lamp, he teased all the snarls out of her hair. It had nearly reached the length it had been before she cut it a year ago, baby-fine and flyaway and terribly susceptible to static. After a good brushing, strands of it always floated around her head like some kind of anemone. It tangled and frizzed so easily that he didn’t wonder why she rarely left it loose, especially since one good wind usually sent her bangs sticking up every which way. He was glad she’d never wanted to dye it, though it had gone entirely grey by now, because it wasn’t just grey — it was threaded through with pure silver that showed up quite plainly in strong light. It would probably be completely white by the time she hit fifty.

“Orla used to do this all the time, when I was a teenager,” she said sleepily. “She’d be happy to brush it an hour at a time. Knowing what I do now, I think she might’ve had some kind’v fetish for it.”

He actually found himself laughing. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “I noticed Julifer’s been growing hers out, since they got together. I ran into Orla earlier — she’s fine, and she said Julifer’s sick, but getting better.” He wasn’t going to tell her about Caleb yet. She’d half adopted the lad over the summer, and he might pull through, even if it didn’t look likely. “Katje might be out of danger, too, and Gerald’s already getting better.”

“Thank God,” she murmured. “I’ve got bad news, though, from what I can remember, that we’ll have to warn the outside about. The virus looks like it’s going to go through a complete antigen shift at least one more time, so having it once won’t be any guarantee of immunity. We’re going to have to be careful a lot longer than anyone might think.”

Ratiri swore silently. Nobody was going to want to hear that, but if her internal Von Rached thought so, she was probably right.

“Tell Sharley that,” he said. “Though she might already know it’s likely. She’s acting head of the DMA — it’s best it comes from her.”

He set aside the brush, smoothing down the static flyaways with his hands. “Enough of that. Come eat something, before your sister barges in and tries to force-feed you. I’ll put some ointment on your scars later.”

“Ugh, please do,” she said, struggling to her feet. “I’m one giant ache.”

She would be, he thought, but didn’t say. She kept mimicking Von Rached’s posture, but she was much too short for it. Ratiri, who was actually a teeny smidge taller than he had been, could easily spot her trying to compensate for height she didn’t have. That observation would not go over well for more reasons than one, though, so he kept it to himself.

 

~

 

Sharley had kept dinner warm for them, and both Lorna and Ratiri positively scarfed it. Lorna didn’t know if it was lingering weakness from her illness or what, but she was both weary and starving.

The twins came to keep her company while she ate, telling her the day’s exploits and complaining bitterly about not being let outside.

“Get used to it,” she said around a mouthful. “You’ll be in here resting a while yet. We all dodged a massive bullet, and I don’t want you getting sick again. You’re over the virus, but I don’t want you getting pneumonia.” They both made the exact same face, but neither argued.

“I’ll get you more sketch paper when I can, and you can teach Marty and Niamh to draw,” she promised, knowing they’d probably already read through all the books her sister had brought. She’d have to try to scavenge some more.

“You guys should write your own story,” Sharley said, filling the empty pot at the sink to soak. “And illustrate it. I know I can find you some notebooks.”

 _“About what?”_ Jerry asked.

“Anything you like. You’ve all seen a lot the last few years — the five of you could come up with something great. Write something big enough, and when things calm down we could try to publish it.”

Their eyes went huge. _“Really?”_ Mairead said.

“Really. Scram, you two — go tell the others.”

Scram they did, and Sharley shook her head as she pulled up a chair. “Jerry could wind up a novelist, when he grows up,” she said. “Can’t hurt to encourage him, and it’ll keep them busy inside a while.”

Lorna, who could hear the excited confab in the living-room, laughed. “Never would’ve thought that up,” she said. “Hopefully it’ll keep them from asking questions. I don’t want them knowing what’s going on out there.” Or what she was doing in the DMA every day. “Sharley,” she said slowly, “what are our odds of actually coming up with a vaccine for this? How badly is it going to shift?”

Sharley looked away. “Come smoke with me,” she said, standing to fetch her pipe. That couldn’t possibly be a good sign, and Lorna’s heart hammered as she bundled up.

The temperature had dropped so far that the falling snowflakes were small and dry, laying fine powder over the wetter, heavier base. It was awfully early for it to be this cold, even so far north. The reflection of so much white made the night seem almost day-bright — snow-light, she thought, as she hunkered down in a chair on the porch. Her fingers went numb so fast she had a hard time using her lighter.

Sharley joined her a moment later, not even bothering with a coat. She was nearly as pale as the snow itself, her odd eyes like beacons by contrast. “It’s going to shift,” she said, staring out into the night. “It’s going to shift entirely at least once. I’ve slowed it down as much as I can, but I can’t stop it. You find a vaccine in every timeline, but not necessarily fast enough. There’s still something I can’t see, some variable I can’t pin down.”

“That’s not terribly encouraging, Sharley,” Lorna said, coughing on her smoke.

“’S the truth, though. Never lied to you, and I’m not gonna start now.”

Lorna sighed, and coughed again. “How long have I got to play Von Rached?”

Sharley shrugged. “Dunno. Depends on how long it takes you to find a vaccine for both versions of the virus. Another few weeks at least.”

“Christ,” she muttered. “It’s the m-variant I’ve really got to work on, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Without it, the flu’ll just be flu. Still dangerous, but not lethal like it is now.”

“Groovy.” Her scars were starting to ache worse already, but she didn’t want to go in just yet. There was something cleansing about the frigid air, for all the cold reminded her of less pleasant things. “Why can’t you just erase this, like you did the Angel?”

“Because I can’t,” Sharley sighed. “I mean, I literally don’t think I could do it again. Anyway, I shouldn’t. The world wasn’t built to be screwed with like that more than once.”

“Figured.” She shivered, her hand trembling so badly she almost dropped her cigarette.

“Go in, Lorna,” Sharley ordered. “Go take a nice hot bath, have Ratiri pick your aura, and get some sleep.”

It wasn’t a difficult order to obey. Scalding water eased the soreness from her scars and her muscles, and Ratiri gave her the backrub to end all backrubs. She was deep asleep within minutes of curling up in her blankets, and for once she did not dream.


	4. Chapter Four

In the three timelines Sharley could currently see, doctors from outside North America came to the aid of the sick. What varied was just how many of them; even she was taken aback by the sheer number of offers that flooded in. Not that she knew just what to _do_ with them, at least within the DMA — they were Ratiri’s problem. The rest went out onto the ships, with what supplies they had to give.

They came through Katje’s office in groups of three or four — generally they’d arrived in something like squadrons, but space was at a premium, and Sharley and Geezer swiftly took to taking in a few from each. And even Sharley managed to be surprised by a small cadre from East Africa — though not half so surprised as Geezer.

“You’re shitting me,” he said flatly, from his seat behind Katje’s overcrowded desk. “Another goddamn Donovan.”

It wasn't a question. The small, slightly scruffy man — one of a  trio broken off from the larger group — was so obviously a Donovan that checking his ID was redundant. The same olive skin and black hair, same height (or lack of it) and wiry build, and his face was twin of Pat’s. “Guilty,” h said. His accent was quite muted compared to his siblings’, but still very Dublin.

Geezer at least had the grace not to let on how amazed he was that anyone from that family had wound up a doctor. “Well, we’ve gotta keep you in the DMA,” he said. “Shit’s gotten weird in here, and it’s probably gonna get weirder. You got a Gift?”

Mick sighed. “Not yet,” he said, “but that’s part’v why I’m here. From everything I've heard, normals’re less prone to this thing.”

“Barely,” Sharley said. “I still want you taking precautions, but we could use you in the hospital. Your sisters’re working here, too, though there’s only one you’ll want to be around during the day. Do you have family with you?”

Mick shook his head. “My wife’s on one’v the ships,” he said. “She’s Gifted, so she stayed put.”

“Smart woman. Siobhan’s immune, and right now she’s on her own — you can room with her, if you want. Lorna’s  house is too crowded, and anyway half of it’s still sick,” Sharley said. “ Both your sisters oughta be off work soon, if Lorna’s in any fit  state to be around other humans.

Mick didn't ask, though he looked like he really, really wanted to.

 

~

 

Siobhan — tired, sore, and heartsick — somehow managed to keep her expression neutral as she left the hospital. Each day, she thought it couldn't get worse, and yet the next always proved her wrong.

She knew she ought to see if the nearest cafeteria had something — she hadn't eaten in ten hours — but a day spent mopping up blood and piss had left her without an appetite. Thought of anything more substantial than a cup of tea just wasn't to be considered.

 The corridors were still eerily empty, heavy with unnatural silence — but Siobhan must have already started getting used to it, because the sound of someone jogging up behind her was like thunder.

It was Dupita, one of the orderlies who’d had the mild version of the virus and managed to go back to work. “Shiv, Geezer called for you ,” she said, somewhat breathless. “Go to the cafeteria and eat a damn sandwich, because we found the fourth fucking Donovan. Then he said something about you all being like a collection of salt shakers.”

Siobhan stared at her. Yeah, that sounded like Geezer, and it wasn't as though anyone was likely to mistake a Donovan for anything else. “Mick?” she asked. ”He’s here? He’s healthy?”

“Yes, and yes. He is a doctor who came with some outside volunteers.”

“Jesus fuck,” Siobhan said, before she could help it. “At least one’v us actually did something with our lives.” Her aching back and feet suddenly seemed far less annoying, and some small part of her was ashamed at how happy this news made her. Christ knew so, _so_ many other people had nothing to be  happy about at all, but at this point she’d take what she could get.

Dupita bade her a weary farewell, and Siobhan all but jogged to the cafeteria. It had a surprising number of people in it — they had to be  more of those outsiders, given how awkward they appeared. They stood around a table of tea and sandwiches, and her eyes scanned them until she spotted the shortarse.

“Mick fucking Donovan, I don't know where you’ve been the last seven years, but if you don't shift your arse over here, so help me I’ll stuff my boot up it.” Seeing him as an adult was something of a shock; she’d  last seen him when he was ten years old. He hadn't escaped the premature greys, and his face was a bit weathered for his age, but he was still Mick.

He visibly fumbled  his teacup when he spotted her. “ Tanzania, that’s where I've been. Jesus, Shiv, when did you last sleep? You look like Death got warmed over and left in the bin out back.”

“Fuck you, too,” she said, and folded him in a fierce hug, tea and all. “Mick, I hope you don't wind up regretting coming here, if you were safe in Tanzania. Sure Christ, I'll be having nightmares about this for the rest’v my fucking life.”

“I’ve seen some shit, Shiv,” he said, leaning back to look at her.

“You haven’t seen this,” she said. “Trust me. Where are you staying?”

“With you,” he said, “according to Sharley. I hope your flat’s bigger than a Saltine box.”

“It’s not really my flat,” she said, and sighed. “My daughter and grandkids are quarantined in my real one — and if you make some crack about me being a gran, I'll make you pay for it.” The knowledge that all four of them were _finally_ in one place — more or less — might have made her weep, if she hadn't been a Donovan. As she _was_ a Donovan, she stole her brother’s teacup instead.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Pat and I’ll just have a laugh behind your back.”

“Sure, when he's not coughing up a lung. Lorna’ll be off soon — I need to call my daughter, but then you and I are going to go crash the not-party at Lorna and Pat’s. I think they’ll both benefit from it.”

 

~

 

Mick hadn't known what to expect of the DMA, but it wasn't anything that felt this much like a tomb. For the first time, he wondered if he was doing the right thing after all — what was he thinking leaving Saida behind? And yet the call of family wasn't one he could ignore, even in the middle of an epidemic. Intuition had sent him here, and now here he must remain, until this either burnt itself out or killed him.

How cheerful.

So he let Shiv lead him through this funereal patchwork of history — through halls that belonged in a Tudor house, to corridors decked in fussy Fifties puce, and on, and on. It would probably  be fascinating if it didn't look and feel like it had been abandoned.

“Now look,” Shiv said, as they rode a nearly empty tram car to God only knew where, “Pat’s still a bit sick, Lorna’s a bit cracked in the head, and they live with an adorable little zombie, so don't stare.”

“Seriously?” Mick had seen some of the little undead children on TV, but never in person.

“Seriously. Her name’s Marty, and you might _almost_ mistake her for a living kid at first glance. Lorna and  Pat have both got  kids — Lorna’s married, though Pat’s not.”

Mick had never heard his sister babble, and it worried him. How much pressure was she under — by her own expectations, or someone else’s?  She was a Donovan,  and unless he was remembering it entirely wrong, that meant she wouldn’t say anything of it until just before she snapped.

The tram let them off  into yet another corridor (this one stuck in the Eighties, if the hideous carpet pattern was any indication), and out through a Door. He found himself in a tunnel that was downright frigid, but Siobhan hustled him along at such a rate that he couldn't get too cold. He’d spent too much time in Tanzania, where even the winters never got truly _cold_.

The snowy yard it led to was a shock to the  system. There was a path shoveled from the tunnel to the house, but a good two feet of snow stood on both sides. The tiny flakes of whirling white would no doubt make it pile up even more.

Siobhan hurried him across the yard, to the long, low house. Warm light  light spilled out from the windows and sliding-glass door, casting golden squares on the snow. She opened the door without bothering to knock, and shooed him inside.

“PAT!” she bellowed, “I've brought someone you want to see.”

Four children appeared before any Pat  turned up — one of them was the zombie girl, but the other three were blatantly Donovans. Christ, the older girl even had Lorna’s eyes, though the younger children’s marked them as telepaths.

“Holy fuck,” the older girl said, wide-eyed. Her voice was raspy, and no sooner had she spoken than she coughed. “There’s another one’v us.”

“This is your uncle Mick,” Siobhan said, “who your da’ll want to see, if he ever gets his arse out here.”

Pat, swathed in two heavy dressing-gowns, chose that moment to appear — carrying a mug, which he promptly  dropped. Naturally, it shattered, and sprayed a halo of tea all around him. “Oh, good Jesus.  _Mick._ ”

“Pretty much my reaction. Park it, the pair’v you — I think I knew where all the tea things are,” Siobhan said. Shocking family reunion or not, they were still Irish, and that meant tea, dammit. Bad enough Pat had wasted his first mug.

“I can help,” the zombie girl said — she really _was_ an adorable little mite. Christ but this was surreal.

So Lorna and Pat lived here, did they? It was nothing like Mick’s house with Saida, yet it felt the same — a good place to come to, after a day spent amid so much death. He was sure he hadn't seen the half of it yet.

“Are you like clones of each other?” the little zombie girl asked, her  milky eyes flickering from one  Donovan to another.

“I doubt anyone’d be mad enough to clone us,” Pat said. He looked so stricken that Mick wondered how much more than the flu had been going on in this  house. “Will the pair’v you stay the night? We can boot the twins out to the sofa.”

“Yes,” Siobhan answered for Mick, “we will. Just keep those bloody cats away.”

In that moment, Mick wished desperately that Saida was here, meeting his family. She was so good at rolling with things that she'd likely take it — and them — and stride. “I doubt it’d hurt anything.”

“Ringing endorsement, that is.” The last two words were muffled by a cough, and Pat hurried away to spit in the bathroom sink. How a body could produce so much phlegm was a mystery he had no answer for.

 When he went back to the kitchen, he shared a glance with Siobhan, and didn't need any form of telepathy to know what she was thinking. If the four of them were finally together, maybe it would make Lorna more like _her_ again, even if only  for a little while. It had been so, so long since they’d all been together — that they could be now, in the middle of this nightmare, was such a blessing that Pat half feared some extra horrible thing would turn up to counter it. _Christ, I hope not._

 

_~_

 

Ratiri was somewhat late in collecting Lorna, and it took the combined efforts of himself and  Sharley to pry her out of the lab.

She said little on their way through the DMA, and nothing at all when they trod through the tunnels, their breath — well, his and Lorna's — fogging the icy air. Oddly, these states worried him even more than the times she seemed all but possessed, because now she was just ...switched off, neither one person nor  the  other. Part of him feared, possibly not irrationally, that someday she might never come out of it.

At least she shivered when they crossed the garden (they’d need to shovel again by  morning, dammit) and seemed to marginally relax when they were in the warmth of the kitchen. The bright, warm, _crowded_ kitchen.

Sharley had warned him about Mick, but good _grief_ — as Gerald put it, the Donovan gene came really was strong. Mick could have been Pat’s twin, for all there were eight years between them.

Lorna had _not_ been warned about her brother, and she halted so abruptly that Sharley had to gently maneuver her so they could actually shut the door.

“Bloody Jesus,” Lorna whispered, and her voice and tone were, for now, wholly her own. “Mick?”

“The one and only,” he said, a touch awkwardly. The poor man, Sharley thought, had not exactly signed on for this.

In three long strides, Lorna was across the kitchen. She pulled her brother into a hug so tight he wheezed, even as he hugged  her back. The icy numbness that had gripped her heart nearly every waking moment began to crack; the uncertainty of her own identity ebbed somewhat. She was Donovan, dammit, no matter what her married name might be. She was a Donovan, in her kitchen that smelled of tea and cheese toasties. This was her home, and the cold wa s outside.

Lorna couldn't even summon shame when she found herself weeping, because the tears were _hers_ — Von Rached had, to her knowledge, never cried in his life. Tears sucked, but they were a reminder that she was alive.

She was only vaguely aware of her other two siblings glomming onto her and Mick in a group hug. They were here now, all of them. Her siblings, and Ratiri, and her  children, and she felt that she could face anything now, if only for  now. They were here. Right now, she was only Lorna Donovan; any alien presence in her mind could go fuck itself.

 

~

 

A week passed, a week of sickness and death. Lorna continued to terrorize everyone in the lab every day, but she got results, and results were what mattered.

They hit a snag when it came to testing it, though. Even with her strange inner Von Rached at full ascendancy, she wasn’t willing to use people as guinea pigs without their consent. Everyone who hadn’t already been exposed to the virus had too much in common sense to test their luck, which left the scientists at a terrible impasse.

“I knew this would happen,” Baker grumbled. “No sane person would volunteer for this.”

“Well, I’m not giving it to anyone who doesn’t,” Lorna retorted. “I’d test it myself if I hadn’t already been sick, but I’m not forcing it on anyone. Besides, until we figure out why some people are immune, we won’t be able to tell if it works or not anyway.”

That was frustrating the hell out of all of them. So far they’d tested dozens of healthy people, and isolated no common immunity vector. Until they had, they wouldn’t know if a vaccinated person didn’t get sick because the vaccine worked, or because they simply, for whatever reason, couldn’t catch it. None of them were willing to send an imperfect vaccine out into the world. Right now, unfortunately, they were stuck. And even Sharley didn’t know how to unstick them.

“There’s still something I’m not seeing,” she said, as frustrated as the rest of them. “I know it’s there, but not what it is.” She couldn’t even point out all the immune cases, to Lorna’s immense irritation. Time, somehow, was in such a state of flux that they had yet to even induce a seizure in Geezer, and Charlese was still too sick for it to even be thought of. It might well kill her.

At least Jary’s treatment was keeping it from getting any worse, in the DMA and out of it. The death toll leveled off, and slowly started to decrease, but it was too slow. People were still getting sick at the same rate, still cramming the hospitals far past capacity, using up resources they simply didn’t have enough of. The DMA team was pushing hard, but without test subjects, they were a tidbit helpless.

Sharley marched Lorna home every night, while Ratiri watched the news at Katje and Gerald’s. By the fifth day Katje was able to move home, and Geezer tried to tidy up a bit before she did. He was a tidy man himself, but he didn’t know where anything went, so the results were a little dubious. Katje still slept too much to care, though.

Early in the morning of the sixth day, Caleb died.

He’d held out a remarkably long time for someone with such pronounced cyanosis, but eventually his laboring heart just gave up. Charlese, who had been on the mend, had to be heavily sedated.

That evening, before Sharley led her home, Lorna went to talk to Gavin. He still hadn’t caught the flu, but he was sick enough with grief and sheer exhaustion. “Take her down to my house,” she said. “She shouldn’t be alone right now, and I know you’ve a lot’v other people you’re looking after. My siblings can take care’v her during the day.” Pat was well enough now, if still weak.

He only nodded, and Lorna’s heart ached for him. He felt such responsibility for the welfare of his people, and God only knew how many others he would lose. He did go with them, when they bundled Charlese and her sedatives onto a stretcher, to see her settled into the house. Even the twins were subdued while she was set up in Sharley’s room, and together with Marty, Saoirse, and Niamh, they disappeared into their own bedroom.

Lorna sat up with the poor girl far longer than she should have. She plugged an electric space heater in, so the room was very warm, lit up soft rainbow by Sharley’s many Christmas lights. Charlese was well unconscious beneath a pile of quilts, her face as pale as it could be and far too thin. Lorna sang her lullabies, carefully brushing and then working oil into her dry, untended hair.

Eventually the girl stirred, looking up at her with dark eyes glazed by Valium. “What language is that?” she slurred, reaching for Lorna’s hand without even realizing she did so.

“Irish,” Lorna said, gently taking her fingers. “Gaelic, technically, but nobody in Ireland calls it that. Hush now, allanah. I’m here.”

She fell asleep like that in Sharley’s armchair, still holding Charlese’s hand, and in the morning actually decided to stay home from the DMA.

“We’re stuck anyway,” she said, when her brother questioned her. “We can’t get any further until we find someone to test the damn thing on, and so far we’ve had no takers among our own people. Sharley’s thinking about calling for volunteers from the outside, but it’ll look awfully bad if we ask for guinea pigs for something none’v us are willing to try.”

“No shit,” Sharley muttered. “At this point I dunno what else to do, though.”

Neither did Lorna. She did know that she was scared enough to be glad for an excuse to stay home for a day. With each successive morning, her hangover-like symptoms had got worse, and taken longer to pass. And her dreams…were best not thought about.

Ratiri left for the clinic, leaving little Mairead at home; ever since Sharley set them to the idea of writing a story, she’d preferred to stick around. All five children went to the twins’ room without needing to be asked, and Mairead the Elder retreated to the living-room to give Lorna and Charlese some space. Maternal busybody though she was, this was a kind of loss with which she had no experience, and Lorna did.

Lorna didn’t hurry at making breakfast for Charlese. She got the girl sat at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and Jary’s tonic, watching the snow outside. It was dumping yet again — it was so deep now that even Ratiri, tall though he was, had to practically wade to the tunnels. She hummed while she cooked, letting Jary’s potion do its work while she scrambled some eggs. She kept the humming at a low pitch, soothing and unobtrusive, but even now her mind was trying to turn over their problems with the vaccine.

 _Stop it_ , she ordered herself firmly.

“Only powdered eggs, I’m afraid,” she said, setting the plate before Charlese, “but the salsa’s homemade, and the jam for the toast. I know you’re not hungry, allanah, but you’ve got to eat.”

The poor kid was crying, quite silently, and Lorna got up to wipe her eyes with her handkerchief. “Don’t think,” she ordered gently. “Not about the future, or the past. Just eat for now.” Numb thoughtlessness had been her friend, immediately after losing Liam.

She got a brush and started work on Charlese’s hair, which had tangled horribly in the night. Stroke by soothing stroke she worked out the snarls, and worked in more of the hair oil Gavin had sent with her. Eventually Charlese at least made a pretense of picking at her eggs, her tears eventually running dry.

“You shoulda gone to work,” she said dully — the first words she’d spoken all morning.

“I’d rather be here.” Lorna smoothed down her hair, and went to rinse the oil off her hands. “I’m sure everyone in the lab would rather I was, too.” She poured herself some coffee, and rubbed at her temples. Her morning headache was still going so strong she’d debated stealing some of Charlese’s Valium, but that way lay only addiction. 

She’d gone that route once, and wasn’t about to do it again.

“How come you brought me here?” Charlese wasn’t looking at her, but at the falling snow, her fork forgotten in her hands.

“Gavin couldn’t stay with you the whole time,” Lorna said, pulling up a chair, “and you shouldn’t be alone right now, trust me.”

“Caleb took care of me. All that summer I was so fucked up with those seizures and we didn’t know what they were, he took care of me.”

“And now we’ll look after you for him.” She reached across the table and took the girl’s hand. “You’re not alone, allanah. You’ve got all’v us, and family can make all the difference in this sort’v thing. I had my sister, and you’ve both’v us and Pat, for whatever he’s worth.”

“I heard that,” the Pat in question said, as he shuffled past the kitchen.

“It’s good for you,” Lorna retorted. She told Charlese a little about Liam, how it had been for her after his death — how grief ran, and recovery. She wasn’t sure just how much the girl was actually taking in, in her drugged state, but she said it anyway. Even if Charlese didn’t process half of it, at least she was hearing another human voice.

When she’d eaten all she was probably going to, Lorna tidied up her dishes and led her to the living-room, plonking her down on the couch and wrapping her in a quilt like a child. The woodstove was blazing, crackling and popping at times, bringing out the cedar-scent of the coffee-table. She chattered the whole while, about not much of anything, just letting Charlese hear her voice. Sure enough, as she’d hoped, the girl was soon fast asleep again.

She sat on the other end of the couch, her head in her hands. She grieved for Caleb herself, that bright lad who’d been so amazed and delighted by his Gift — who had all too briefly carved out a better life for himself. He’d deserved to live so much longer, to do so much more. And unfortunately, she knew what Charlese was in for, just what course this kind of grief could take. Kid was going to need everything she could get.

Lorna hadn’t intended to fall asleep herself. All she’d done was rest her head back on the couch cushions, but she was still so exhausted that it didn’t take her long to drift off.

_She dreamed._

_Moreover, she dreamed of the Garden. This was a place she’d never been before, a meadow high atop a mountain. It was sunset here, not night — an absolutely glorious sunset. Huge thunderheads were gathered above, stained red and gold, the entire western sky a vast paint-smear of light. Once again both her eyes were cooperating, so for a while she just watched it, seated barefoot on soft moss. It was cool out here, but in the Garden she had no scars for the cold to ache._

_No sign of the Lady yet, but she didn’t always turn up in the Garden-dreams. Sometimes Lorna just found peace here, as she did now — for the first time in over a week she felt clean, free of the taint left with her from channeling Von Rached’s intellect. She leaned back on her elbows, content to just be here._

_“The world is troubled, child.”_

_She looked over and saw the Lady approaching, her dark eyes a touch sadder than normal, and snorted. “You could say that. Lady, I don’t know what to do. We have a potential vaccine, but nobody’s willing to test it, and until they do, we’re well buggered. We can’t do what Von Rached did with Thorvald’s vaccine, and just force it on some poor hapless fucker against their will.” She picked at a blade of grass. “He once told me my ethics would be the death’v everyone, but I couldn’t do it. Even if doing it would save lives. I’m stuck.”_

_The Lady came and sat beside her. “Your vaccine would not work against the influenza itself,” she said, stroking Lorna’s hair. “It shifts too quickly. You have found what you call the m-component, and it is that you must vaccinate against. In that, what you have come up with is sound, and you may tell the world such.”_

_“So many people are dying, Lady,” she whispered. “Even if we inoculated the whole country tomorrow, people would still die, thousands’v them, and_ why _? How the hell did any of Thorvald’s thing manage to get loose to attach itself to this flu?”_

_“That I cannot tell you. You will know, in time.”_

_“That’s not exactly helpful,” she grumbled._

_“I know,” the Lady said gently. “Sharley will see it when she is meant to, just as you will perfect your vaccine when you are meant to. For now send out what you have. It will save lives, even if it does not save all of them. It will make a difference.”_

_“Something has to, at this point,” she sighed. “About Charlese — what do I do? Poor kid’s half destroyed right now, and still sick on top’v it.”_

_“Be with her, you and your sister. She loves you like family, and you will see her through this. I will speak to her soon, when she is ready.”_

_Lorna had a feeling the Lady could do more for the girl than she or Mairead could. Thank God for her sister, who could stay with Charlese when she herself had to go back to work. Girl would never be alone._

_“Now wake, child, and tell the others what I have told you.” She smoothed the hair from Lorna’s forehead, and vanished._

Lorna woke. She hadn’t been asleep long — only fifteen minutes, but her headache was gone.

Charlese was still well under, and the children were careful not to wake her when they tiptoed over.

 _We made her something,_ Saoirse said, passing a piece of paper to her aunt. It was one of the girl’s drawings, their beautiful, intricate drawings that they must have stayed up half the night to complete — and yet it wasn't wholly her own. There were elements in there that had to be from the twins, because they weren’t as photorealistic. Caleb and Charlese in deck chairs beside the fire pit in summer — something that had to have come from their own memories. It was sunset, and they were smiling at each other over brown bottles of beer, utterly content with the world.

“It’s beautiful, you lot,” she whispered, hugging them all with some difficulty, and rose to cannibalize a frame for it. One of her photographs was sacrificed to the cause, laid carefully away in a drawer. “Give this to her, when she wakes up. I need to make a phone call.”

She made several, perched on the kitchen counter with the cord stretched as far as it could go. She talked first to Baker, who didn’t want to hear a word of it, and then to Sharley, who actually listened. Lorna told her everything the Lady had said about the vaccine, and let her deal with Baker. That done, relief washed through her; it was out of her hands, now. For today at least, she was off the hook.

When she went back into the living-room, she found the children sitting on the floor, patiently waiting for Charlese to wake up. They’d dragged out their art supplies and were busy on yet another picture — this one of Tanya in the Swamp with her zombies.

 _“This one’s for Marty,”_ Jerry said, shading away. _“We think she’s kinda homesick sometimes.”_

She probably was, Lorna thought, as she gathered up the detritus that had slowly spread its way across the living room — empty mugs, stray socks, and a fork that had somehow found its way under the woodstove. Her mind was quiet, but some deep part of it was still working away, racking itself for some possible way any trace of Thorvald’s virus could have survived. How could it still exist, let alone attach itself to something that could make the mundane population ill, too? And how could some people have an immunity to it?

Questions, questions without answers. She scowled, bundling up so she could go smoke again. She’d resolved to try to quit, before this started, but she definitely wasn’t going to right now. Late morning though it was, it almost seemed to have grown colder. The snow had stopped for now, but the cloud cover was heavy as ever, heavy and dark, and she hunkered down deep in her blanket-nest.

Dark.

Cold.

She nearly swallowed her cigarette as her brain kicked into high gear. Thorvald’s darkness had covered the northern hemisphere. Nobody but herself and Von Rached had gone into it, but what it if had somehow left traces? What if there was some kind of…of viral residue?

_Then why did it wait until now to get people sick? And why only North America?_

Her mind coughed up an answer to that, too. It was dormant. It needed another virus to piggyback on to, and the flu’s contagious as hell anyway.

_Still, why only North America?_

This flu started here, and the ships quarantined us before it could continent-hop.

It was a baseless theory, one she’d have to go back to the DMA to test, but it made a horrible kind of sense. Leading theory on Spanish flu was that it was a mutated combination of human influenza and avian, mixed together and incubated in pigs, which could catch both. If Thorvald’s virus mixed with ordinary influenza, mutated with it, it would explain why the normals caught it, too….

Oh. Oh, _shit._

If she was right — and baseless or not, she was almost sure she was — it wasn’t just America that was at risk. The entire northern hemisphere was a time bomb, just waiting to develop some other epidemic this thing of Thorvald’s could pirate. And if it escaped into the southern hemisphere….

They didn’t just have to inoculate North America. They had to inoculate the entire goddamn world.

She forced herself to finish the cigarette, turning over the theory for any gaping holes and finding none. It was pure conjecture, but it made far too much sense.

_Test it. Test the hell out of it. Lie to your subjects, if you have to._

Most of her was revolted by the idea — but then, it wasn’t really a lie. The Lady herself had told her the vaccine worked. All she had to make sure of was that she was right about the virus’s origin, before they started mass-producing enough for the rest of the world.

As soon as she’d finished her smoke she went inside, scrambling into some regular clothes and ordering her sister and the children to stay with Charlese. She didn’t even bother brushing her hair before she left, though she did grab several rocks and a piece of kindling from the porch, to test. She ran practically the entire way to the hospital, and arrived terribly out of breath — man, she really did need to quit smoking when this was over. Without a word to anyone she barged into the lab, grabbing a stack of slides and carefully taking samples from the things she’d brought.

“What the hell are you—”

She sealed Baker’s jaw shut without looking at him, freezing him where he stood.

“Shut the fuck up, all’v you.’

Yaeko made the extreme tactical error of not listening. She wasn’t accusatory, though; merely curious.

“No, really, what are you—” she started, and faltered when Lorna glared at her. It was such a Von Rached glare that the poor woman all but fled before it.

“All’v you, _out_ ,” Lorna snapped, releasing Baker. It was a mark of how terrible her ferocity was, that half the room immediately headed for the door.

“Now, wait a minute,” Baker said, and she rounded on him.

“Get out’v here before I break your damn neck,” she said, quiet but deadly. “I’m on to something here, I know I am, so go away and let me test it in peace.” She could feel it, feel the alien echo of Von Rached stirring in her mind, and Yaeko was wise enough to grab Baker’s sleeve and almost haul him away.

Someone had put up a new door in the days since Sharley destroyed the old one, and Lorna didn’t just lock it — she snapped the knob off so nobody could try to get back in. Shoving her hair out of her face, she got some dye from her private store, and addressed her inner Von Rached.

“Don’t you take over,” she ordered. “Don’t you make me forget this. Just _help me_.”

It didn’t answer, but for once, when it woke it didn’t put her to sleep. With remarkably steady hands, she added some dye to the slide containing a sliver of wood, and slid it under the microscope.

And sure enough, it was practically coated in the virus.

“Shit,” she hissed, dismayed and excited all at once. The dismay was hers; the excitement had to be a remnant of Von Rached. She found the same thing on the next two slides, ones taken from the rocks, her back already aching from the change in her posture. The methodical scientist that was Von Rached demanded more samples, but there simply wasn’t time. She was right, she knew it, but still that compulsion was there, that undeniable need for more—

Time.

_Sharley._

Lorna couldn’t manipulate it, but technically, Sharley was outside it. And Sharley could go through the Other, go all over the world without risk of spreading the disease. She could get samples from absolutely anywhere.

Lorna didn’t bother cleaning up before she left, and pulled the door down herself. Baker tried to get in her way, and without a second though she touched his forehead and made him drop like a stone. “Nobody,” she said quietly, into the shocked silence, “go in there. I swear to God we’ll kill anyone who does.”

She didn’t register the ‘we’, but some of the others did, and all but dove out of her way as she stalked her way to Katje’s — now Sharley’s — office. Sharley was surrounded by paperwork, muttering to her voices, but she looked up when Lorna came in — looked up and went, somehow, even more still.

“Jeeze, that’s creepy,” she said. “You want me to help you with what I can’t see, don’t you?”

“I know what you can’t see. I’m certain of it, but I still need to test it.” She moved a stack of papers off a chair, her eye a little too intense as she regarded Sharley. “I need samples. I need samples from all over the world, and then I need you to slow down Time for us, as much as you can. I have a feeling we’ll need every second.” She told her what she’d thought of, what she’d found — what she knew in her bones they had to do.

“Shit,” Sharley whispered.

“My reaction exactly. I wish I was wrong, but I’m sure we’re not.”

Sharley stared at her. “‘We’re’?” she echoed.

“Huh?”

“You just said ‘we’re not’,” Sharley said, very carefully. “And you haven’t blinked once since you got here. This…this is wrong.”

Lorna paled. “Oh God, it _is_ , isn’t it? I don’t need this kind’v crap. Not now.”

Sharley rose and paced, agitated as Lorna had not seen her since before her trip to see the Lady. “No, I mean it’s _really_ wrong,” she said. “As in, shouldn’t be possible. This is supposed to burn itself out, not weave its way into your waking psyche.” She shook her head. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen in any timeline. I didn’t see the virus, I didn’t see this with you…something’s fucking with me.”

“What?” Lorna asked, her own concerns momentarily forgotten. “What could do that?”

“I don’t know,” Sharley said, with such grim ferocity it disturbed even Lorna, “but I’m gonna find out.” She glared at nothing. “Guys, is there something you’re not telling me?”

 _“No,”_ Sinsemilla said, troubled. _“We don’t know any more than you.”_

“Awesome.” She pinched the bridge of her nose in a gesture entirely too reminiscent of Miranda. “All right, I’ll get your samples. Do what you can, and for fuck’s sake don’t kill anyone while you’re at it.”

“It’s tempting, but I won’t.” She was far too worried about her use of the word _we’re_ to feel particularly murderous. She’d have to talk to the Lady about that, whenever she got the chance — but then, the Lady hadn’t warned her of it during their last conversation. God, she was getting so tired of this. All she wanted to do was go back to sleep, but that other part of her, the Von Rached-part, was wide awake and fired up. If their vaccine was as sound as the Lady said, they needed to start mass-producing it now — but she wanted to see if there was some way of sterilizing the viral residue. If not, they were going to have to inoculate every baby born for God only knew how long.

“Argh,” Sharley muttered. “I’m gonna have to tell the whole world about this.”

“Wait until we have a vaccine to give them,” Lorna said. “Otherwise you’ll just start a panic. Another one.” Poor humanity — here they were, not quite a year after the first global disaster, and they were already facing another. How much longer could they hold out, before someone did something epically stupid? Thorvald had united them in a way something like disease would not; she only hoped the ships could keep as good a control out in the world as they were in America.

“I should warn them of the possibility, though,” Sharley pointed out. “So they know to be careful before anything starts.”

For the first time, she was glad northern repatriation had been so slow. China, Russia, and Europe still held a shadow of their pre-ward population, and so long as the southern hemisphere quarantined itself, it had a chance of escaping entirely. This was bad, but it could be a hell of a lot worse.

 _Never thought I’d be glad for the earthquakes_ , she thought, but it was the damage from those quakes that kept everyone from moving back north willy-nilly over the summer. “Good point,” she sighed. “In that case, you better do it soon. And tell everyone that we can give anybody who’s got the facilities that we can give them a sample of the vaccine, so they can start synthesizing it themselves. They might feel better if they’re not solely dependant on us.”

Now it was Sharley who sighed. “I’m on that, before I do anything else. Go do your voodoo — I’ll talk to you as soon as I can.”

 

~

 

Lorna went, steeling herself to deal with Baker and the others. The part of her that was _her_ felt sorry for the poor man — she had a feeling he wasn’t normally such a prick. Dealing with Von Rached tended to bring out the worst in everyone, scientist or not, and for all intents and purposes, Von Rached was exactly who he was facing. When all this was over, she’d have to get him a steak sandwich and some good beer, if there was any left.

She kept that in mind when she went into the lab, for once not barging. “Listen up, people,” she said, moving a microscope out of the way so she could sit on the counter. It was the only way the ones at the back would be able to see her. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

Mercifully, nobody interrupted her, though Baker looked like he wanted to.

“I have it on the Lady’s authority that the vaccine we have does work — that’s the good news. The bad news is that we’re going to need a hell’v a lot more of it than we thought.” She told them what she’d found on her samples, and even Baker paled. He wasn’t a stupid man — like it or not, he’d come to realize her conclusions were sound. However much, in this case especially, he wished they weren’t.

Yaeko swore in Japanese, and actually had to sit down on the floor. They were all scientists, all used to tackling daunting problems, but this was exponentially worse even than what they’d faced over a year ago, the first time they dealt with Thorvald’s virus. Inoculating a billion people had been bad enough; now they were looking at at least three billion. Half the world’s population was still crammed into the southern hemisphere, but that still left the other half. And eventually they’d have to get to everyone south of the equator, too.

Lorna herself might have despaired of it, if it weren’t for that inner Von Rached. Right up until the end of his life, he’d never even entertained the possibility of his own failure, and it seemed his echo didn’t, either. For once, she was actually grateful for that. It had grated on her horribly before, but they needed it now. It was somewhat ironic, she thought, that he should help save the world from beyond the grave.

“I…let’s get going,” Yaeko said, pulling herself up.

“You guys do that. I’m going to see if there’s some way to sterilize these samples.” She’d almost, almost said ‘we’ again, and it made her twitch. Jesus Christ, she’d be glad when this was over.

 

~

 

That afternoon, Katje and Gerald were watching when Sharley made her announcement. They were both curled up on the couch, surrounded by a snowdrift of used Kleenex, under practically every blanket they had.

Katje was dozing, until Gerald poked her feet. Sharley must had gone through the Other, to get to D.C. so fast, and had a very hurried confab with the people in charge.

For once, she didn’t look like a scruffy drifter. Her blue hair was loose, almost glowing under the klieg lights, and she’d swapped out her tank top and coat for a long, richly embroidered black dress that left her white arms bare. Her mismatched eyes were nearly as bright as the lights; she looked every inch a god, and Katje hoped that would reassure people rather than terrify them. She didn’t think Sharley realized just how scary she could be.

She spoke, and even her voice sounded different — remote, far less human.

“We have a problem,” she said, “and a solution, but that will take time. What is happening in North America has the potential happen everywhere in the northern hemisphere,” she went on, silencing the outcry with a hand. “Anywhere Thorvald’s darkness touched. It is a residue of his virus that makes the influenza in America and the DMA so lethal. All it will take elsewhere is an outbreak of some ordinary contagious disease, and his plague will attach itself like a leech.

“We have a vaccine,” she said, louder, quelling the room with something too impassive for a glare, “and the ships will deliver supplies to every facility capable of duplicating it. They will spread their quarantine to the entirety of the southern hemisphere — all there are safe, so long as the quarantine is not breached, and we will inoculate all there, in time. I would ask no more refugees be sent north until this is contained.

“In the meantime, I caution everyone in areas not yet affected to take great care. This plague is harmless until it attaches itself to something else — it is why it did not appear until now. If we can prevent outbreak of a conventional pestilence, we will also prevent spread of this plague. Do as we currently do in America — remain in your homes, and allow the ships to make deliveries. Until all are vaccinated, isolation is the best chance we have of sparing you what is now happening in America and the DMA.”

The reporters started hurling questions, but Katje tuned them out; she’d heard more than enough.

“Good God,” Gerald muttered, horrified. Nobody had told them this before Sharley went live with it; they were as surprised as anyone by what she had to say.

Katje muttered an entire litany of curses in Dutch, and grabbed his hand to pull him back down when he tried to rise. “Stay,” she said. “There is nothing you can do in hospital, and I don’t want to be alone right now.” She didn’t add that she thought he was still too sick for so much stress — he would only insist he knew better. She didn’t want him literally working himself into a very early grave, though. She needed him too much, now more than ever.

Those had been the magic words. He sat, and pulled her feet onto his lap, massaging them almost on auto-pilot. In what now seemed another lifetime, when she’d still insisted on wearing stiletto heels, he’d done it every night, and it seemed to act as a focus for him now. “I hate this,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t talking about rubbing her feet.

“I know.”

“We had six years. Six good years. Now I wonder if we ever will again.”

“We will,” she said, though privately she wondered the same thing. It had once seemed so simple — kill Thorvald and bam, problem solved. Now she wasn’t sure their trials by fire would ever end. What kind of world was little Miranda going to grow up in? She’d been sequestered with other healthy children since things started to go so bad, and Katje still didn’t dare go to her. She couldn’t bear it if she passed this to her daughter.

And the twins…they’d been so young when Von Rached first stole them, barely five. To them and so many other children, this upheaved disaster of a planet was normal, and like Ratiri, she didn’t know if that was fortunate or tragic. Only time would tell — if they even had time.

“I wonder how long Sharley’s been doing it,” she mused aloud. “How long she’s been slowing Time, and we were just too sick to notice.”

“She’ll probably never tell us,” Gerald said, half asleep. “She might not even know how to explain it.”

Probably not. Poor woman was more alone than any of them, but now she didn’t seem to mind. Now she just seemed bent on saving the world.


	5. Chapter Five

 Mick rapidly decided that once this was over, he didn't want to live inside the DMA itself. He missed his home in Tanzania almost as much as he missed Saida, who he’d only managed to speak to twice. According to her, pregnancy was still a bitch, but at least it was warm.

The flat he and Siobhan shared was so impersonal it was nearly sterile, and their attempts to inject a little personality into it just made it all the more so. It made him wish he could spend  more time at the Duncan household, but that would have to wait. For now, he’d  just come off a twelve-hour shift, his aching feet were propped on the pressboard coffee- table, and there they were  going to stay, dammit. And while the sofa might be an especially blah shade of beige, it was damn comfortable. There was no beer to be had, but  he had a precious can of grape fizzy drink that had been waiting for him all day in the fridge. It was the little things. There were also two sandwiches, but those were waiting until Shiv got home.

When she arrived, she was absolutely grey with weariness — the shadows under her eyes were so dark that her face looked far too much like skull in the anemic lamplight.

“Jesus Christ, Shiv, who let you go home like this?” he demanded. Rising, he actually had to help her to the sofa, where she all but collapsed.

“I’m fine,” she said, in blatant defiance of all evidence. “I’m just tired.”

Mick rested his wrist on her forehead. “Right,” he said, “and that’s why you're burning up.” He was just about ready to shank whoever had sent her on her way after her shift.

“I can’t be sick,” she said. “Sharley said I'm immune.”

“Yeah, to this.” Mick still wasn't sure just what to think of Sharley yet. “There’s still ordinary flu, Shiv — and if you run yourself ragged, you’re wide open to all sorts’v opportunistic infections.” Even as he spoke, he fetched a dish towel and ran it under a cold tap in the kitchen. He wasn’t going to say that he had no idea on what basis Sharley had drawn her conclusion about Siobhan’s supposed immunity.

“What the fuck am I meant to do, Mick — go home for a bloody nap?” Siobhan demanded. “It’s all hands on fucking deck.”

He tried not to roll his eyes as he returned to  her. “Here, put this on the back’v  your  neck. And ‘all hands on deck’ sounds great, until the person who owns the hands keels over.” Great, her eyes were bloodshot _and_ her pupils were dilated...he didn't care how awful the hospital was. Someone should have seen her home. “Were you still cleaning up shit and sick?”

His sister shook her head. Wisps of hair clung to her clammy forehead. ‘They were short’v actual staff today, so I actually got to look after people — some nurse showed me how to take vitals, that sort’v thing. Lot’v people wanted me to just hold their hand — which was bit weird, sure, but it hardly hurt me.”

Mick went still. “How often did you do this ?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. Most’v the day. It was nice to be able to _do_ something for once.”

“You stay put,” he said, though the order ewa shardly necessary; she looked like it would take a direct nuclear strike to shift her. He went to the kitchen phone and rang Ratiri, hoping the man hadn't yet gone home.

“Hello?” Ratiri said. His voice was sandpaper-rough with weariness.

“Ratiri, this is Mick. I know it's short notice, but could you come look at Siobhan? I think she might’ve acquired something, but I haven’t got the right Gift to know for sure.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“I owe you one,” Mick said, and meant it. He rang off, and returned to his bleary sister. Assuming Sharley was actually right about Siobhan's immunity, her symptoms weren’t truly _hers_.   

He got her shoes off, at least, and dropped their crochet patchwork throw over her — it had been a present from Mairead. Siobhan merely dozed, seemingly unaware.   

It took Ratiri a solid half hour to get there; when he did, he was so  grey that  Mick gave him half of Siobhan’s sandwich — he doubted she’d have much appetite for a while, and he could always get her another later.

“Am I right?” he asked, when Ratiri went to examine Siobhan.

The man’s hands hovered over her hair, searching for God knew what. “You are,” Ratiri said. “Siobhan’s developed healing, under the worst possible circumstances. She couldn’t have known how much she was taking on from others, so she went and took too much.”

“Christ,”  Mick muttered. “Has she — d’you think she’s taken enough to kill her?” His contact with healers had been limited.

Ratiri shook his head. “Her aura’s not grey enough for that. She won’t be going back to work any time soon, and I'd feel easier if someone stayed with her during the day. Mairead — Sister Mairead — is well enough that she’s driving Pat spare, so she’d be favorite.”

“Pat said Shiv’s been so frustrated, being a normal,” Mick said. “That she’s felt  useless, given all she could do was mop up sick. Bit ironic that she has a really useful Gift she can’t actually use right now.”

“She can have a laugh over it later. Meanwhile, we ought to get her settled.” The flat only had one bedroom — Siobhan had it, while Mick, more accustomed to sleeping rough, had an air mattress on the sitting-room floor. Her scrubs made decent pajamas, and she was soon tucked snug under the blankets.

“She’ll be all right,” Ratiri said. “The cold is outside.”

Mick blinked at him. “What?”

“It’s something Lorna says, when she reminds herself of her blessings. You lot were always cold as kids, and she spent most of her teens living in a warehouse. Now she, and you, and Siobhan, are safe and cared for. Now you only need to be cold if you want to.”

It was an odd way of putting it, and yet it made sense, in  a very Donovan sort of  way. “I never would've thought that would ever happen, when we were kids,” Mick said. “If it didn't feel like the world's trying to end after all, I'd be able to appreciate it like I ought to.” As it was, he couldn't help but fear he'd found his family only to risk losing them.

“Things will work out,” Ratiri said, with an utter lack of conviction. “After all we've been through, they have to.”

Mick wished he could believe that.

 

                               

~

 

 

Pat was ridiculously glad to get Mairead  out of his hair, though at least he went with her to get everything settled — Siobhan’s flat really was so bland and barren that they took a big box of bright cushions and afghans and assorted homey shit that would make it a nicer place to be sick in.

And Siobhan _was_ sick — sicker than a damn dog, as Geezer would say. Pat knew exactly how much that cough had to hurt, and her face was blotchy with fever. She looked like hell, and yet she also seemed almost...relieved. She’d done what she could, and now she had a Gift that would eventually be useful.

“I’m glad she’s safe in here,” he said quietly. “When we got sick as kids, Mam did her best, but that wasn't much. The house was always cold and damp, and the beds were never warm enough. But now here’s Shiv, in a warm room, with a better mattress than we ever would’ve dreamed’v back then. She can be sick as long as she likes, with no one to give out at her for staying in bed.”

Not for the first time did Mairead wonder what the fuck their mam had seen in Ryan Donovan — and how she ever could have stayed with him, given the nightmare that was their home. “You’re glad’v it for Siobhan and Lorna, but not you ?”

“Me too, I guess,” he said, and struggled to smother a cough. “I looked  after them, until I got myself nicked. Stupidest thing I ever did, but at least Mick came out all right. Never even been arrested.”

Siobhan shifted, hacking so hard they had to help her sit up. Mick said they couldn't suppress her cough or she’d risk pneumonia, but Jesus, the woman needed to sleep somehow, didn't she?

Pat brought her some water, but it was a solid minute before she could sip at it.

“The sad thing,” she rasped, when she could, “is that this is still better than mopping up sick and piss. If I never smell the smell’v puke again, it’ll be too soon.” She sounded like someone had had a go at her vocal cords with sandpaper, but there was a notable absence of the frustration that had plagued her since she first came to the DMA.

Pat hadn't realized just how much being a normal had bothered her — how useless and powerless it made her feel. His own Gift hadn't been of much use for long stretches, but it hadn't bugged him. It would serve its purpose sooner or later...he should have had a word with Gerald, or someone, and got her doing some other job. It was just one more thing he’d failed at, as an older brother.

“Oh, give over with that face, will you?” Siobhan said. “Mick’ll be home, and he might have Lorna with him, and we can all have sandwiches and tea like civilized bastards.”

“My life would’ve been so much more interesting if I’d found you younger,” Mairead said. “Though Gran, God love her, would’ve driven you all spare.”

“Lorna’s told us stories,” Pat said. “I wasn't sure I believed some’v them.”

Siobhan’s cough grew worse before Mairead could reply, and Pat both gave  up and got up. His poor sister could hack like a dog later, when Mick was the one to deal with it. For now, Pat fetched  the plastic bottle (amusingly, shaped rather like a hip flask) that contained what he was pretty sure was liquid Vicodin. According to Siobhan, it was sickly sweet, but a spoonful ought to quiet that cough before she burst a blood vessel.

‘“Mick can give out at me later,” he said.  “I'm afraid  you'll cough up half your lung.”

“Christ, he’s at the door,” Mairead said, rising. “I’ll run interference.”

Pat didn't bother asking how she knew — Mairead just had a sense for things like that. It probably went with having four children, and, at one point, a Lorna who was four steps above feral.

At least the medicine did its work in a hurry. Poor  Siobhan’s cough eased, leaving her drained and exhausted. “ Christ, I wonder how long this’ll last.”

Mick breezed in just in time to catch that. His coat was rumpled, though not so much has his hair. “Ratiri says you're probably looking at another five or six days,” he said. ‘I got you  more Pedialyte, though don't ask me how. Let’s just say I hope my firstborn’s a girl.”

He didn't sound entirely like he was joking, but Pat still couldn’t quite tell when it came to Mick. “How’s Lorna?”

“I think the more pertinent question is, _what_ is Lorna’,” Mick said quietly. “Whenever I see her, it seems like she’s in a haze, but then I hear she’s terrorizing the scientists because she has a dead supergenius in her brain. And even with everything that’s gone on, part’v eme can’t believe that’s a sentence that’s come out’v my mouth.”

“Try being the one who’s brain he’s in.”

Pat twitched, because he hadn't heard Lorna approach; all of a sudden she was in the doorway, silent as as ghost and nearly as pale. Deep purple smudges had taken up residence under her eyes, and he wondered when she’d last truly slept.

“I don't want to talk about it,” she said. “Any’v it. I just want to...be, and to remember who the  fuck I actually am.”

“Come here, Fun Size,” Siobhan said. “Come on and sit down, just like  when we were kids. I don't pretend to know what in bloody fuck’s going  on in your head, but you’re Lorna Fun Size Donovan, dammit. Everything else is just...details.”

That drew a soft laugh from Lorna, and Pat let himself hope, just for a moment, that everything would be okay. Whatever was going on in her  head, they had to get rid of it somehow. They probably weren’t lucky enough for it to go quietly into the bloody night.

 

~

 

As it turned out, they were that lucky. Pat was wrong, but in the end it didn’t matter. In the end, it went away anyway, though Lorna never would tell anybody how.

Three and a half weeks into November, she hardly knew who she was anymore. Contrary to Ratiri’s predictions, though, it continued to scare her. She tried to fight it, but she was unaware, anymore, just how deep this strange blended consciousness ran. She no longer knew how to fight it.

When the anniversary of Thorvald’s death came about, she wasn’t even aware of it. There wasn’t much in the outside world she was aware of, anymore; she’d been too single-mindedly focused for too long. As a result, she’d entirely forgotten the Lady’s promise to give her a gift the night of that anniversary. And when she got it, at first she didn’t think it a gift at all.

_Her morphine-induced sleep took her to the Garden — the first time she’d been here in over a month. It was night here, too, deep night with a brilliant silver moon. It was another place she’d never been before — it looked startlingly like the mountain, when the mountain had been alive. The trees were taller, though, older, their roots grown over with white, starry-flowered bacopa. Blue star creeper made a soft, cool carpet under her bare feet, but nothing stirred around her, no animals or night insects — even the air was perfectly still. Half this stuff wouldn’t be able to grow here in reality, but the incongruity was beautiful._

_But, horribly, it didn’t give her the peace it ought to. That terrible alien thing had come with her, making its presence more sharply known than it had in weeks. She didn’t know if she was grateful for it or not. On the one hand, it was easier to tell self from non-self, but on the other, she finally realized how deep it really ran. Her instinct was to tear it out, but to do so would tear her apart, too._

_She walked a while alone, searching the forest for that terribly elusive peace, for the calm she could for once not conjure. It hurt her horribly the she couldn’t — that finally even the Garden had failed her. It wasn’t until someone spoke that she noticed she wasn’t alone, not anymore. It was only one word, her name, but the voice that spoke it made her twitch._

_“Lorna.”_

_She turned, and found Von Rached standing in front of one of the towering trees, and she followed her immediate instinct, which was to march up and kick him. Really, really hard. It almost certainly wouldn’t hurt, but it was the thought that counted._

_“You,” she said. “You_ asshole _. If it wasn’t for the fact that all the shite you left me with was useful, I’d choke you for it.”_

_He didn’t respond for a long while — he just looked at her, until she started doubting his reality. “I did not give it on purpose,” he said, at long last. “I would not have done that to you of my own accord. All that remained with you did so to seal the scar left by the snapping of our mental connection. It would have driven you mad, otherwise.”_

_Whatever had caused it, she was forced to admit it had literally been a lifesaver for hundreds of thousands of people. She couldn’t grudge it, no matter what it did to her personally. Not much, anyway._

_“How do I get rid’v it?” she asked. She’d forgot how damn tall he was — she actually went and stood on a rock, to close their height differential a bit. “I’ve found all we’re going to find. I don’t need it anymore, and I sure as hell don’t want it.” Even in death he was rewiring her brain._

_Again, he didn’t answer right away, and for the first time she realized there was something very different about him. It was nothing visible — physically he was still ungodly tall, his eyes reflective as they’d always been, ever since she first met him and they creeped her out royally. How they’d both changed since then, even before their respective deaths._

_No, it wasn’t visible, but after a moment she figured out what it was. He was at peace — at peace in a way she never would have thought possible; there was no coldness now in his mirror-eyes. She was right — wherever he’d gone after death, it wasn’t any kind of hell._

_“Are you going to answer me, or will you just stare all night?” she asked, and he quirked an eyebrow._

_“I will take it back from you,” he said quietly. “All of it I can. A trace of it I must leave, for to take it would destroy the scar sealing your consciousness.”_

_“So do it,” she said. He was still staring at her, and one thing death had not taken was his seeming inability to blink more than once every five minutes. Yeesh, even dead and at peace he creeped her out a little — possibly because she understood him better now. After so long with his thoughts in her head, she really didn’t have a choice._

_For once, his approach didn’t set off any warning-bells. He wouldn’t hurt her even if he could, and she was quite certain that here he couldn’t even if he’d wanted to. “I don’t think you are going to like how I have to do it,” he said, with a touch of his old dryness._

_“Why not?” she asked warily, as he stopped before her. At least, standing on the rock, she was only a foot shorter than him._

_“If I give you any more warning, you’ll run away,” he said, more dryly still, even as he touched her face._

_It was a mark of just how much of her remained, that her immediate instinct was indeed to hit him and flee, but for once instinct did not equal instant action. Her initial jolt of panic receded when she felt the poison he’d left in her mind draining away, and she didn’t jerk backward when he touched her hair. There was nothing proprietary in it, nothing to stir the revulsion she’d felt literally every other time he’d ever touched her. He was right — she didn’t like it, but neither did she loathe it._

_And it was falling, dissipating, that alien thing that had lurked half-dormant in her mind since long before the plague. For that alone she could tolerate this._

_He touched her mind, careful to go no deeper than he had to, to get everything out. And, almost scarily, she trusted him to do it. Maybe she’d gone crazy, or maybe she was just so desperate she’d trust anything at this point — whatever the reason, she did. She didn’t fight it; she let him sift, unafraid he might do anything worse._

_And she felt it, the very moment the last malignant traces were gone — felt like herself, for the first time since her resurrection. She wasn’t surprised when Von Rached didn’t draw away; she was, however, surprised that she didn’t, either. Her mind had gone so quiet that it couldn’t tell her to._

_“You’re so full’v shite,” she said, shutting her eyes. “No way you had to touch me to do that.”_

_“No,” he admitted, his hands still in her hair. “But I had to shock you somehow or I never would have gotten into your mind. And I don’t think I could hit you again.”_

_“Touché,” she returned. Somehow, she still wasn’t angry; possibly because she still didn’t feel violated._

_“Stay,” he said, and she knew he was asking for nothing more than that._

_She drew back and raised an eyebrow at him. “Why do you want me to?” she asked, quite ready to be furious._

_“Because I will probably never see you again. I have no right to ask it of you, but I’m going to anyway.”_

_“Some things never change,” she muttered, and wondered why she still wasn’t mad at him. Maybe it was the Garden — maybe it was her regained peace — whatever the reason, this was literally the first time she’d been in his presence without being uncomfortable, or irritated, or both. It was almost disconcerting._

_“Some things never will,” he retorted. “Tell me about the Earth. Tell me about your life. They do not let me watch — they know you would not wish me to.”_

_“Who’s ‘they’?” she asked, hopping off the rock to sit on the blue-flowered groundcover._

_He sat with her, facing her, still watching her intently. “My guardians. I can tell you no more than that. Some things you may not know until you have crossed over yourself.”_

_“Figured.” She thought a moment, while the trees stayed quite still all around her. “Earth’s gone to hell in a handbasket. My life…hasn’t.”_

_She found herself telling him far more than she meant to, at the moment too tranquil to wonder why. Her horrible post-resurrection identity crisis, her unease and anger at discovering she’d half-inherited things from him, however useful they had been. Her return to the mountain, to her home, the long slow rebuilding of everything that had been destroyed. About L.A., their discovery of Gavin and Charlese and Caleb, Sharley’s gradual recovery and the reorganization of the DMA. Finding Mick - or rather, Mick finding them._

_And for once Von Rached listened a long while without comment or interruption. Eventually, though, he did speak. “And what about the twins?”_

_Somehow, she wasn’t surprised by his curiosity. “Mairead wants to be a doctor,” she said. “Before the flu hit, she sometimes went to the clinic with Ratiri. Sharley’s set the pair’v them to writing a story, to keep them busy while they recover — she says Jerry could grow up to be a novelist. They’ve both grown so much, too. I think they might wind up quite a bit taller than me after all._

_“They’ve both got your artistic talent, too. God, I was so furious when I found out you’d sat down and taught them to draw. Seems silly, now.” She looked at him, intensely curious. “You loved them, didn’t you?”_

_Death really must have changed him, because he said, quite without annoyance or reservation, “I did. I do. They are not mine in any sense that truly matters, but I am…glad I had them, for a time.”_

_“They miss you,” she said quietly. “I think so, anyway. They’ve not said anything of it to me, but they do. You can’t have made too bad an impression on them.”_

_“I tried not to. I didn’t want them becoming what I was. Not when they have the potential to be so much worse.” She’d bet he didn’t know what he was doing when he reached out to touch her hair. For once she let him, because it was merely fascination now, not fetish. Without the predatory aspect that had once almost defined him, she neither feared nor reviled him. She didn’t_ like _him, and she certainly never would, but his proximity no longer filled her with revulsion. They’d both moved beyond what they’d been._

_“They could be so much more, too,” she pointed out. “More than any Gifted who’ve ever been. God knows they got your intelligence, and unlike you they’re not complete twats.” There was no rancor in her voice, though, no accusation._

_“I tried to make sure they wouldn’t be,” he said, without irony. “I never lied to them about what I was — only what I was to them. I think that helped.”_

_“I know it did. I saw you on the ship, with Mairead,” she admitted. “You didn’t know I was there. You really should have found someone else, you know, someone who wasn’t me. I thought even then that you might not’v made a half-bad parent if you hadn’t been such an asshole.”_

_Now he was the one who arched an eyebrow. “No,” he said flatly, “I wouldn’t. I would not have changed if it weren’t for you, though I very nearly destroyed you. I am sorry, Lorna. It would have been so much better for you if I had never met you.”_

_“No,” she said thoughtfully, something she hadn’t thought of in years re-occurring to her, “actually, it wouldn’t. If I’d not gone to the Institute, I never would’ve met Ratiri, or any’v my friends. I’d not have my mountain, or my home. I’d never even have learned to control my telepathy. In a really twisted way, I suppose I owe you.”_

_His surprise was so deep it was almost shock. “The DMA would have found you eventually,” he said, almost defensively._

_She shook her head, still terribly thoughtful. “Probably not soon enough. I was on my way to being half mad by the time I reached the Institute. I’ve seen what can happen to so many telepaths who go too long without training, and it’s not pretty. I wish you hadn’t bloody gone and raped me,” she added, and he actually flinched, “but I can’t regret going to the Institute itself. I figured that out a long time ago.”_

_“I never should have tried to keep you,” he said, a touch bitterly. “I knew even at the time it would never work, but for once in my life I was a willfully blind idiot. I still cannot believe you would ever forgive me for it.”_

_“Honestly, I can’t either,” she said dryly, “but somehow I did. And as pissed off as I’ve been at you the last few months, I never did manage to un-forgive you. Though sure I sometimes wished I could.”_

_He finally seemed to realize he was touching her hair, but he didn’t actually stop. “You are a better person than that.”_

_“No,” she retorted, “I’m really not. Something helped me, though I still don’t know what it was. The Lady, maybe.” She shook her head, but didn’t dislodge his fingers. “You built me up in your head to be something I’m not. Even if you hadn’t done what you did when you did, you still would’ve done it eventually. Eventually you would’ve figured out I wasn’t what you wanted after all. Christ, you might’ve killed me for it.” That she probably would be angry about when she woke up, but she still wasn’t yet. Shit, she was probably going to be pissed off about this whole conversation, later. But that would be later._

_“I very nearly did, that night,” he admitted. “In that moment I hated you as much as I loved you. You are right — I finally realized you were not who I had imagined you to be, in my twisted way. I spent so long wishing you had broken my neck rather than my legs. I deserved it.”_

_“I know. That’s why I didn’t. Was worse to make you live with yourself.”_

_“Yes,” he said, wry, “it was. Especially since after that, I did love you for who you were. Temper, profanity and all. When I met up with you again I envied you your peace, your ability to move on where I could not.”_

_“I know you did,” she said. “On both counts. I guess I don’t have much choice but to be okay with that, since you’re dead and all.”_

_Incredibly, he laughed at that, quietly, but there was far more sadness in it than humor. “I would rather you would,” he said. “Not for my sake, but for your own. I would rather you not let resentment of me poison your life, now that I am forever out of it. I only want you to be happy, Lorna. I realized long ago that even had there been no Ratiri, even had I somehow tricked you into being mine, you could never have been happy with me. You belong where you are, on your mountain. I would not take that from you even if I somehow could.”_

_She looked briefly away from him, out into the shadowy trees. When her eyes returned to him, she said, “You know, I really don’t know how to deal with you, when you’re like this. I never did, all those odd times you weren’t being an asshole. Sometimes, it creeped me out even worse than when you were a controlling, obnoxious twat. It’s like I could see what you might have been.”_

_“I could never have been otherwise than I was.” He brushed the hair back from her forehead. “I have always known that.”_

_Now, finally, she swatted his hand away. “What is_ with _you and my hair?”_

_“It is beautiful,” he said simply. “You are beautiful, whatever you or shallow others might think. I envied Ratiri, too, for seeing in you what I thought only I should have.”_

_Somehow, it didn’t bother her that he said that. Probably because for once he wasn’t being a possessive creep about it. She snorted. “I’m definitely not now, back on Earth,” she said. “All scarred-up and half blind. That eye’v mine squicks even me.”_

_He touched her face, where the line of her scar would be. His fingers were no longer fever-hot; now they were as cool as Sharley’s. “Yes, you are,” he said. “Ratiri thinks so, and so do I.”_

_She didn’t pull away, to her own surprise. “I probably ought to be creeped out by that,” she said. “I wonder why I’m not.”_

_“Because I’m dead,” he said  simply. “I am no potential threat to you.”_

_“What, and you were before?” Her eyes almost crossed, as she tried to follow the line of his finger._

_“For a brief while after Thorvald died, yes,” he said frankly, “I very much was. Fortunately, you were stronger and less injured than I.”_

That _would almost certainly horrify her when she woke. She’d been so convinced he was bluffing that it never occurred to her that he might not have been. Even here she shivered, and he drew his hand away._

_“I’ve disturbed you,” he said quietly._

_“You’re good at that,” she returned. “Would you have? Really?”_

_He paused a moment, clearly thoughtful. “No,” he said at last. “But I do not know how far I would have gone before I stopped myself. I was I no fit state to fully realize what I was doing. I was so set on driving you to kill me that I wasn’t thinking straight at all.”_

_She shuddered again, because she had no idea what to make of that. Her tranquility wouldn’t let her be too horrified by it yet, though. That would doubtless come later._

_“You’re really twisted.”_

_“That,” he said, with a bit of his old asperity, “goes without saying. Or rather, I_ was _twisted. Death seems to have stripped that from me.”_

_“That’s twisted in and of itself.”_

_The Garden-sky was lightening. It would be morning here soon, which meant it would likely be morning on the Earth mountain, too. This downright surreal conversation wouldn’t last much longer. She wondered how much she’d resent it when she woke._

_It seemed Von Rached had realized that, too. “I would ask one more thing of you, before you go.” He was looking at her a little too intently, but it was an intent of resignation rather than predation. “Since I really may never see you again.”_

_“What?” she asked, eying him a little askance._

_“Sigyn,” he said. “Remember her name. Perhaps one day you will remember more that I told you, when your fever was so ill.” Even as he spoke, he touched her hair again, and now she finally swatted his  hand away_

_“Yeah, I don't think so,” she said. “I let you get creepy with my hair. You’re pushing your luck as it is, and I’d rather not have to do something I regret to you.” Sigyn. One again, the  name felt so familiar, in a way it should not have been unless she’d personally known someone called that._

_“Don’t,” he said, lightly touching her cheek. “Go be alive, Lorna. Go move forward, and forget me as much as you can. You are yourself again — that should not be too hard, now.”_

_“Right,” she said, dubious. “No offense, but I never want to see you again.”_

_“I highly doubt you ever will. Thank you, Lorna, for giving me what I did not deserve. Wake up. Move forward, and don’t look back.”_

She didn’t know what to say to that, and never got the chance, because she did wake then, and found herself staring at the ceiling.

“What,” she said to herself, “the _fuck_ was that?”

 _Closure_ , her mind supplied. And, to her surprised, she found it was right.


	6. Chapter Six

Ratiri woke long before Lorna did, woke to find she’d curled up with her head on his chest. It was three-thirty in the morning, the sky outside actually clear for once — and he knew, almost instantly, that something had changed.

Lorna was out like a light, but until now she’d held a certain amount of tension even in sleep. The inner fire she’d got from Von Rached had seemed like it was trying to consume her from the inside, but now…now she was still. Calm. Truly at rest. Her forehead was rested against his neck, and her skin was no longer fever-warm.

He wondered if it was safe to dare hope. Had her metaphorical sickness broken? Had Sharley been right — did it really burn itself out after all? There was no way of knowing without waking her, and for once she looked so peaceful — he couldn’t do it, no matter what his curiosity. She was asleep, not drugged; he could let her keep it, as long as she was able.

He stayed awake himself, though, looking out at the night sky. The snow made the stars even brighter against all that darkness. He watched until dawn, when sunrise gilded the snow pale gold, and eventually Lorna stirred.

She sat back, and looked at him, and his heart almost stopped. There was nothing in her good eye now but her; the blind was merely blind and nothing more. There was a tinge of sadness in her expression, but it was unmistakably hers and hers alone, free of anything that shouldn’t be there.

And then she smiled at him — a true Lorna-smile, such as he hadn’t seen since before the war. Somewhat incredibly, her long-dry well of tranquility seemed to be replenishing itself. Something told him she was done with the identity crisis that had plagued her since her resurrection; she might not have regained what she’d lost, but he could tell just by looking at her that she’d somehow got rid of what she didn’t want. Amid so much death, it was like a ray of light in the dark.

“What happened?” he asked. The sunlight peeking through the window lit her hair up as bright as the snow — she looked like a small, scarred angel, some battle-seasoned warrior angel. She might not be beautiful to anyone else, but in that moment she was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

“I can’t tell you,” she said gently. “But it’s gone, allanah. All’v it. I hope we won’t have need’v it again, because it all drained away.” Still there was that faint measure of sadness, but he knew instinctively that it wasn’t the loss of that poison she grieved for. Something had, at long last, given her closure, and he knew just as instinctively that she’d never tell him what it was. Perhaps she couldn’t have explained it if she wanted to.

Rising, she went to shower, and when he shuffled his way into the kitchen he found his own burden had lightened. The sorry state of the world still pressed on him, but the weight of his personal worries had lifted.

Surprisingly, Sharley was there — she must have come home at some point in the night. She had tea brewing, some fragrant blend of Jary’s, and for once she let him kick her out of the kitchen so he could make breakfast. He hummed tunelessly as he did, frying up pancakes as only he knew how. Even Sharley couldn’t beat him at that.

She didn’t ask about his good mood, and he thought she must already know why. Mairead the Elder, though, did. She’d zombied her way into the kitchen, yawning hugely, her curly red hair a wild mess. “You’ll see,” he said, adding margarine to the pancake tower. Butter and syrup were things of the pat, but jam they had in plenty.

All five children and Charlese were up before Lorna had finished wrestling with her wet hair, and he left off cooking to pick the poor girl’s aura. Physically she’d almost completely recovered, but she still mourned Caleb terribly. Lorna’s sister sat beside her, as she did every morning, and made sure she ate. A good aura-cleaning always helped, but Ratiri thought it might be years before she got over losing Caleb. God knew he’d grieved for Katherine for damn near a decade. Maybe, like him and Lorna, she’d someday meet someone else.

The sun had fully cleared the eastern mountains by the time Lorna herself emerged from the bathroom, her hair well wrapped up in towels. Her home-made conditioner meant it took twice as long to brush her hair as it normally would, and then she had to bundle it up when she went to smoke or it would literally freeze stiff.

Pat stared at her, and cast a sharp glance at Ratiri, who gave him an open-handed gesture that said, _I have no idea_.

Lorna poured tea instead of coffee, and when she’d wrapped up and gone out to the porch, Mairead almost dragged him into the living-room.

“I really don’t know,” he said, before she could say anything. “Just go with it. I think we can safely say that’s over, at least.”

Mairead shut her eyes, and he watched the worry fade from her aura. They still had more than enough to worry about, but it was amazing how big a difference the loss of that one could make. The outside world might still be mired in hell, but at least their home no longer was.

“Sure God, I hope you’re right,” she said.

“I know I am,” he returned.

 

~

 

Lorna shivered on the porch, but for once the pain in her scars didn’t bother her. The sunrise was possibly the most beautiful one she had ever seen, the snow sparkling like a prismatic blanket over the world. The frigid air was quite still, without even a breath of wind to disturb the white-laden trees.

She sank into her long-absent peace like a warm bath, wrapped it around herself like one of her quilts. She hadn’t realized how very much she’d missed it until she got it back, and maybe that was why she truly didn’t regret the previous night, why she didn’t wake revolted when the spell of the Garden wore off. Von Rached had kissed her, and she didn’t care. She might not have liked it, but even awake she didn’t hate it, or him. If that wasn’t evidence of how much tranquility she’d regained, she didn’t know what was. She no longer minded her inability to hate him. He had, after all, mostly made up for his past transgressions.

Sharley joined her a moment later, her mismatched eyes curious as she lit her pipe. “You’re better,” she said bluntly, blowing a smoke ring. “How?”

“You don’t know?” Lorna asked, surprised, and Sharley shook her head. “Then I’m not going to tell you. There’s probably a reason you don’t.”

Sharley accepted that without further question. They sat in companionable silence, until Lorna looked thoughtfully at her cigarette.

“You know, I think I might be able to quit these now,” she said. “Well, soon, anyway,” she amended. “When all this has passed.”

“You really should. Doesn’t hurt _me_ any, but you’re human — and no offense, but you’re not getting any younger.”

Lorna’s laughter pealed out across the snow. “Thanks,” she said, but there was no acrimony in it. For now at least, she was entirely incapable of being offended. She sobered quickly enough, though. “I hope we don’t have cause to need it again,” she said quietly. “All the Von Rached-knowledge I got rid’v. I couldn’t get it back even if I was lunatic enough to want to.”

“We’ve got plenty enough to go on,” Sharley assured her.

“What do I do now, though? My job’s effectively over, after all. I couldn’t in good conscience just settle back down at home yet, with so much still to do.” She didn’t really have any useful medical skills on her own, and most of her strengths and talents were useless in an epidemic. At least now she might actually be able to be good with people again. That had to be worth something, even if she wasn’t sure what.

“I need a third wing man,” Sharley said. “Katje and Gerald are on enforced medical leave until I say otherwise, and Gavin and Geezer just aren’t enough. You know how I work and you’re not scared of me like half the damn DMA seems to be. It’s an annoying job — I dunno how Katje can stand it — but I could use the help.”

“You got it.” It was a relief to still be needed — needed as herself, and not the strange creature she’d been so many weeks. There wouldn’t be anything for her to do on the mountain until late spring, so God knew she had time on her hands. The bane of having what was essentially a seasonal job.

“I want you to do something else,” Sharley said, “and I’m serious. In the evening, or whenever you’ve got time, I want you to write a memoir.”

Lorna stared at her, incredulous. “What?” she said. “Why?”

“So the DMA has a record. I want all of you to do it. Everybody a thousand years ago were idiots, destroying so much of what they had written about the Obliteration. Thorvald’s not coming back, but maybe in another thousand years there’ll be someone else like him, and then people might be grateful for it.”

Lorna had a whole host of problems with that, starting with the fact that most of what she might write was much too personal to share. “Sharley, allanah, if I’ve really lost everything of Von Rached’s, I can barely even spell. And anyway, you’d never get enough paper.”

“I could. I will. I want all of you to do this, but especially you.” Sharley was looking at her so intently that Lorna wondered what future she’d seen, to make her so insistent.

“I’ll try,” she said. “But I can’t guarantee it’ll be anything like coherent. I haven’t really written anything since before I left school.” Thirty years ago, God help her.

“I’m not gonna grade it,” Sharley said, with a hint of a smile. “And I’m not asking for a masterpiece. You start on it today, while I get your job sorted out. You oughtta have a day off anyway, to readjust.”

She had a point. This returned peace felt so new it was almost throwing her off-balance. “I’m going to regret this.”

“No, you won’t,” Sharley said seriously. “And others will be glad you did.”

Lorna didn’t ask, because she was sure Sharley wouldn’t tell her.

 

~

 

Accordingly, once Sharley and Ratiri were off to work, Lorna went and sat in her bedroom with one of the twins’ notebooks and some ballpoint pens she found in a drawer. They left globs of blue ink on the paper, and her handwriting was still atrocious, but it seemed Von Rached’s spelling had stayed with her, even if his eloquence had not.

 _My name is Lorna Saoirse Duncan,_ she wrote, and chewed on the end of the pen _. I’m forty-three years old, though God knows how old I’ll be before I finish this thing._

_I don’t even know why I’m writing this right now. It seems like a massive waste of time. The world’s doing its damndest to fall apart — again — and here I’m sitting in my pyjamas writing my memoirs. I have to say I hope nobody ever needs to read this._

_I also have to say I’m not a writer, and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I never even kept a diary for very long before. So if this turns out to be a big rambling mess, don’t say I didn’t warn you._

She chewed on the pen again, until she bit the end off and had to go rinse the ink out of her mouth.

_Sharley didn’t tell me where to start this damn thing, so I’ll skip the unimportant bits. When I was thirty-three, I woke up with telepathy one morning, and ran away to America. I got caught and sent way up north to a prison, where I met some good people and a very evil man._

_That bit’s important, even though it happened six years before what I’m supposed to write about. Because that evil man caused all this shit, and died for it._

She thought longer than she wanted to about the Institute, and summed it up with one line:

_It wasn’t fun there._

Now what?

_You see, the evil man fell in love with me. If he hadn’t, he might not have been so pissed off when I escaped. And if he hadn’t been so pissed off he might not have attacked America, which wouldn’t have woken up Thorvald, who wouldn’t have killed millions of people and left this virus to kill hundreds of thousands more. So I guess it’s kind of my fault, too._

_I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d killed him when I had the chance. Several people who ought to know what they’re talking about say Thorvald would have got out eventually anyway, and I believe them, but still. If I’d killed Von Rached when I had the opportunity, none of it would have happened yet._

_Von Rached. You know, I’ve never actually written his name before. It’s too short, too simple to get across how much of a monster he was, how many terrible things he did, but I’ve got to give him this much. He did clean up his mess, and it killed him._

_But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll probably do that a lot. I’m good at telling stories, but it seems like I’m shit at writing them._

_It’s hard to pinpoint the start of the war, but I’m going to go with the man named Jameson. The spy we caught, the first real clue we had about what Von Rached was up to. He’s dead now. So many are, good and evil._

She scribbled all morning, until her hand began to ache and her fingers were smeared with sticky blue ink. And she realized, as she stared at the lines that were still untidy in spite of the care she took, why Sharley was having her do this now. Her tranquility was new again; now was the best chance to make sense of all the old things.

_I don’t want to write about the darkness, but Sharley told me to be thorough, and it might be you’ll need to know about it someday. I hope not, and anyway I can’t imagine why you would, since the thing that made it is dead. But maybe, God forbid, there are other things like it out there, or will be someday. If so, I hope I’m dead long before then. No offense, but one was more than enough for a lifetime._

_It killed. It killed everything, even bacteria, but it left this virus that’s killing so many now. I’m not nearly good enough with words to get it across properly, and unfortunately you can’t telepathically imprint on paper or anything. Trust me, you wouldn’t want me to anyway. It probably really is better those memories eventually die with me._

_Memories. God. I hope you never have to see them, whoever you are who’s reading this. They’re worse than a nightmare. You can’t kill them, can’t hurt them. The only way to deal with them is to not find them in the first place._

Once again she paused, wondering if she ought to try to commit Lethbridge and its aftermath to paper. She knew she couldn’t do it justice, but felt she had to try anyway.

_It hurt, when they got me, hurt so bad I wished it really would kill me. I still don’t know how it didn’t. They’re so far beyond scary that your brain almost shuts down when you see them, and you don’t know whether to freeze or run. Ask Sharley about them, if she’s still around. They killed her, you know, when she was human. Don’t ask her about that bit, though. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you. This is my book of secrets, not hers._

_I’d say there were other people who could tell you better than me about Thorvald and his origins and all that shit, but most of them are dead now, too, so here’s what I know._

She laid it out as clear as she could, only breaking when her stomach threatened to eat itself out of hunger. The sun was tipping toward afternoon when she headed to the kitchen and got herself a sandwich. Charlese was napping, and the children were holed up in the twins’ room, and Pat dozed on the sofa. Only her sister was about, cleaning, as usual. Siobhan was well enough to go home to Eris and her grandkids, which left Mairead at loose ends, God help them all.

“What’ve you been doing in there all morning?” she asked.

“Sharley set me a school assignment,” Lorna said, smiling crookedly and massaging her hand, “while she works out a new job for me. And no, you can’t read it,” she added. “It’s for posterity only.”

“Do you really think I’m that nosy?” Mairead asked, with injured dignity.

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Lorna retorted. “I know you are, but stay out’v it. Promise me, Mairead.”

“I promise,” she said grudgingly.

Ratiri phoned while Lorna was still working on her sandwich, to say that the first round of vaccinations had begun in North America and Eurasia. They had a right assembly-line going in the DMA, too.

“We’re going to beat this,” he said tiredly. “Not for a while yet, but we will beat it.”

“What exactly have I missed, the last few weeks?” Lorna asked her sister, when she’d hung up. “I was so head-down in research, I haven’t seen the news at all.”

Mairead actually didn’t seem that surprised. “Russia’s got it,” she said, fixing up her own sandwich. “Not as bad as we’ve had it here, though. Most’v them listened to Sharley and self-quarantined, but there were enough eejits who didn’t to set it off anyway. So the rest’v Europe and China locked out Russia. Been a fair few riots, according to Ratiri. Probably a good thing you missed the news, really.”

“Maybe I ought to watch it tonight,” she mused. “I should check on Katje and Gerald anyway.”

She went back to her journaling immediately after lunch, somewhat amazed that she actually had some enthusiasm for it, in spite of the undeniable nastiness of the subject. Her hand hurt more than ever by the time she got to Thorvald’s actual death, and her handwriting had deteriorated badly, but still she wrote.

_Killing that fucker…I hope you never have to do anything like that, Reader. Shit, I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you, even though I don’t know you and never will._

_Let me get this out of the way. I killed three people before that, one by accident and two in defense. This, though, this was murder. Necessary murder, but still murder. His blood was black, and so hot I almost felt like boiling tar. I still have nightmares about it sometimes, like I’m Lady Macbeth or something, where I can’t wash it off._

_We left his body there. For all I know, its ashes are still there, unless the rain washed them away by now. What’s left of the whole Institute is still there, too. It’s a kind of monument to evil, really, and someday I hope somebody turns the rest of it to the ground. I dream about it too, sometimes, as I let it and when it was still running. I had one not long before this flu went to hell, and now I wonder if it wasn’t some kind of foreshadowing I didn’t interpret right. I’ll probably never know._

_I’m not going to write about what followed right after. It’s too personal, and anyway it hasn’t got anything to do with the point of this book. Seven years later, the Institute still wasn’t any fun._

And it _was_ too personal — too personal and too terrible for her to want to revisit, even with her tranquility. Some things were simply best left buried.

She wrote until Ratiri got home, and grabbed another sandwich before they returned to the DMA. She had to see Katje and Gerald — and she also, though she didn’t want to, ought to watch the news. Time to pull her head out of the sand, now that she had no excuse to stay there.

The quiet in the DMA was as eerie as ever. They didn’t even have half the population vaccinated yet, so the quarantine was still strictly in effect. How many people were growing restive, as they got better? How many now resented essentially being trapped in their homes? Unfortunately, they would be stuck there a long while yet, though hopefully not through New Year’s.

Katje and Gerald, she found, were restive enough themselves. Both were pale, and had lost a little too much weight, but they weren’t sick and they were a bit mad that Sharley wouldn’t let them fully back to work yet.

Katje had gone through and restored the whole apartment to its normal state of show-room neatness — everything out of Miranda’s reach, anyway. The kid, now vaccinated, was finally home; though she wasn’t walking yet, she would try to climb everything she could get her tiny little hands on.

Only the coffee-table was a mess, scattered over with papers; Sharley must be sending at least some work their way, to keep them out of trouble. Which was, Lorna thought, a good thing, or they’d both go mad from boredom. “She drafted me, too,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor and letting little Miranda crawl in her lap. Now she seemed content to play with Lorna’s braid, rather than try to eat it. “I start tomorrow, God help me.”

Katje was looking her over intently, appraising. Her still-pallid face made her eyes seem even bluer — Katje was the one who looked like an angel, weary and too thin though she was. She was the truly beautiful one, whatever Ratiri or Von Rached might say. There was a wisdom in those sky-blue eyes that hadn’t been there before the war, and Lorna reflected that in her own way, Katje had gone through even more shit than she herself had.

It had been Katje who’d held the DMA together after Miranda’s death, all through the war — who had seen it destroyed, and been the driving force behind its resurrection as a system, a community. And she’d never been properly appreciated for it, either — come springtime, Lorna was going to throw her a party, and gather together whatever spa goodies she could scavenge.

For now, Katje was still staring at her. “You are…different,” she said at last.

“Better,” Lorna returned. “The word you’re looking for is ‘better’. And you will be, too, if I have anything to say about it. You’re coming for dinner soon, whether you like it or not.”

“Sharley’s been cooking for us,” Gerald said. “But it would be nice to get out of here for a while.”

Ratiri glanced at his watch. “News now,” he said. “Talk later.”

Gerald turned on the TV, and it didn’t take Lorna long at all to decide she didn’t like what she saw.

NBC had got something like a professional studio again, its anchors well-pressed and well-groomed. It was a strange reminder of a world that was no more.

All too soon, the picture cut to the day’s footage. Birmingham, Lorna recognized immediately — England, not Alabama. The skyline beneath the sullen clouds still looked like a row of broken teeth, knocked to near-rubble by the earthquakes, that that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the people, hundreds of them, a violent throng rampaging through the streets. Many were obviously ill, and more than a few collapsed even as the cameras rolled.

“Rioting occurred all over Britain today, after announcement went out that the first shipments of the influenza vaccine were dropped off at clinics across the nation. Many were unsatisfied with the designation system set down by the ships, and took to the streets in protest. Doctors fear the sick will have spread the contagion beyond hope of control in some areas.”

Police in full riot gear and respirators guarded the entrance to the clinic, but they would have been overwhelmed if not for the zombies. They moved through the streets and lined what few stable roofs there were, sniping people with tranquilizer darts.

Something dropped from the overhead ship — several canisters that spat out purple gas upon impact. It took over the street, the mob disappearing in the fog.

“In Birmingham, Glasgow, and London, the ships dropped what they called sedative-bombs to stop the rioting, and the undead crew carried the rioters to their homes and, in same cases, hospitals, over the objections of the police.”

“Glasgow,” Ratiri snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”

The picture cut to a sergeant in a respirator. “We don’t agree with this at all,” he said, his voice muffled. “If we don’t come down hard on this now, it will never stop.”

“Others,” the anchorwoman said, “are of a different mind.”

Now the screen showed the interior of the clinic itself, and an elderly, careworn doctor with thinning white hair. “These people are scared,” he said. “Scared, and sick. They can’t be allowed to riot, but violence and arrest aren’t the answers. The ships need to be let do their jobs.”

“Christ,” Lorna muttered. Mairead was right; she was glad she hadn’t seen the news up until now.

They were looking at the studio again, the anchors. “It must be said that for the most part, people are maintaining the quarantine. Most clinics across Europe are administering the vaccine without problems, along the guidelines set down by the ships.

“Earlier today we also spoke by phone to Sharley Corwin, still acting head of the DMA.”

Sharley’s voice filtered out through the speakers. “It’s slowing,” she said. “You must remember that. It was dropping even before the vaccine became available, and it will only continue to do so. Hard as it is, you must have patience. In no potentiality do we fail — the only variable is how long this will take to pass.”

“She’s not told anyone about the contamination yet, has she?” Lorna asked.

“No,” Katje replied. “She says it’s far too soon for that. She say that it will be private with government and health officials, or people will lose their heads completely.”

“She’s probably right,” Ratiri said, grim. Even the ships likely wouldn’t be able to deal with that. There just weren’t enough of them.

The national news was actually a little less dismal. The higher percentage of sick and recovering kept rioting from being a major problem; there simply weren’t enough healthy people to do it. As a result, administration of the vaccine went much more smoothly, though there were still plenty of hiccups.

Miranda left off playing with Lorna’s braid and bit her finger. Kid had almost a full set of teeth by now, so it hurt.

“I think someone’s hungry,” Lorna said, wincing. “Stay put, Katje — I’ll feed her. Can’t watch any more’v that anyway.”

Miranda scowled until she was put in her high chair, but at least she ate willingly enough. Lorna looked at her thoughtfully.

“This is all normal for you, isn’t it, allanah?” she said, wiping some soup overflow from the kid’s chin. “My twins’re old enough to remember the world as it was before, but you’ll have no idea.” Looking at the little girl, she realized fully just what kind of future people she was theoretically writing for — people for whom the world she’d lived in the first forty-two years of her life would be nothing but a story. Huh. Maybe she should put some background info in after all, to give the damn thing some context. Maybe they all should, or the future generation would have no idea what they’d moved on from. Or why they shouldn’t go back.

 

~

 

When Lorna got home the next evening, Ratiri knew just by looking at her that being Sharley’s assistant was as much of a pain in the ass as he’d expected. Still, beneath the surface of her irritation lay that tranquil well he’d though he’d never see again.

Sharley actually came home with her, for once, and when Lorna had gone to sit on the couch, she drew Charlese into the kitchen to help her cook.

“Creole food,” she said seriously, at the girl’s bewildered look. “Best stuff there is. Ratiri, you stay outta here — I’m teaching this kid here to make gumbo.”

“Out of _what_ , exactly?” he asked, throwing up his hands in defeat.

“Trade secret. Go sit with your wife.”

He went like a good little boy, feeling about ten years old — how did she _do_ that?

Lorna was scribbling in her notebook, but she set it aside when he came and sat down. She’d unbraided her hair, and it fell down around her like a shawl.

“Did Sharley ask you to do one’v these, too?” she asked, and rested her feet on his lap.

“She did,” he said, leaning his head against the back of the couch. “I don’t know what to put in it, though.”

“Me either,” she said, stretching so that half her joints cracked like gunshots. “I’m just writing whatever comes into my head. Probably won’t make a damn bit of sense, in the end.”

He laughed tiredly. “Can you handle it?” he asked. “All the terrible things you have to write?”

She smiled at him, a gentle Lorna-smile, though there was a tinge of sadness to it that hadn’t been there before the war. “I could handle anything, now,” she said. “Even helping with Sharley’s damn job,” she added, with a faint grimace.

“Let me guess,” he said. He took one of her feet and began rubbing it, almost on auto-pilot. “Paperwork?”

“Got it in one. Not as bad as Katje was about it, though, I’ll give her that. It’s all actually necessary things like tracking vaccinations, but still.”

“Can you still…translate?” he asked, a little hesitantly.

“Partly,” she said, frowning a little. “That’s what’s weird. I’m not perfect at Spanish or German anymore, but I can still half understand it, and I spoke neither at all before. I think what I remember now are things that imprinted into my own mind.”

Oddly, he was relieved by that. Useful as those talents had been, they simply weren’t hers. What she did remember now was, though, and when everything was over maybe she could build on it. She did have an ear for languages, even if her spelling was atrocious in all of them.

Frigid air wafted in through the kitchen, and when Ratiri went to see who’d let it in he found Gavin. A subdued, snow-covered, weary Gavin, but the man’s expression lifted a little when he saw Charlese. Under Sharley’s supervision, the girl was carefully chopping onions at the work-island, a little hesitant with the sharp knife. She was entirely focused, though, not half lost in the valley of her own grief. While she wasn’t a short woman, she looked tiny next to Sharley, who had a good seven inches on her; it made her look even younger.

She looked up at Gavin, and actually smiled a little. It was a wistful smile, but it was there. “Sharley’s teaching me to cook,” she said. “Though right now I’m just trying not to chop off my fingers with this damn thing.”

“You’re learning fast,” Sharley assured her. “First time Jary tried to teach me to cook as a kid, I did chop the end off my middle finger.”

Ratiri grimaced, and even Gavin winced. “Appetizing, Sharley,” Ratiri said. “Really appetizing.”

“Coulda been worse,” she said. “At least it didn’t fall into the soup.”

 _“Gross,”_ Jerry called, from the twins’ room.

Ratiri shook his head. After all they’d seen on the news, it was a relief to be home.


End file.
